How Startups Can Compete with Big Tech for Talent

# How Startups Can Compete with Big Tech for Talent

Big Tech companies pay enormous salaries, offer incredible perks, and have brand recognition that startups can't match. Yet startups successfully recruit from FAANG every day. Here's how.

Understand What You're Really Competing Against

### Big Tech Advantages - $300-500K+ total compensation - Brand recognition and prestige - Stability and resources - Clear career ladders

### Big Tech Disadvantages - Bureaucracy and slow movement - Limited scope of impact - Small cog in big machine - Potentially boring work

What Startups Offer That Big Tech Can't

### Meaningful Impact At a startup, individual contributors can change company direction. That's impossible at Big Tech.

### Ownership and Equity Upside While Big Tech RSUs are valuable, they're not life-changing. Startup equity can be.

### Speed and Learning Startups compress decades of career learning into years. Growth happens faster.

### Mission and Purpose Startups often have clearer missions that employees connect with personally.

How to Position Your Opportunity

### Lead with Impact "You'll own our entire mobile product. At Google, you'd be one of 200 engineers on a team."

### Be Honest About Trade-offs "We can't match their cash, but here's what we offer that they can't..."

### Speak to Their Frustrations Many Big Tech employees are frustrated. Understand what they're looking to escape.

### Show, Don't Tell Let them meet the team, see the codebase, understand the actual work.

Targeting the Right Candidates

### Who to Pursue - 2-4 year Big Tech tenure (learned skills, ready for more) - Frustrated with pace or impact - Entrepreneurial interests - Mission-aligned background

### Who to Avoid - Risk-averse optimizing for stability - Primarily motivated by compensation - Can't articulate why they'd leave Big Tech

The Interview as Sales Process

### Qualify Early Understand their motivations before investing interview time.

### Involve Impressive People Your best people should meet promising candidates.

### Create Excitement Show them the most interesting problems they'd work on.

### Close Actively Don't wait for them to decide—actively guide them toward yes.

Compensation Strategies

### Maximize Equity If you can't compete on cash, compete on upside.

### Get Creative with Cash Sign-on bonuses, performance bonuses, early review cycles.

### Sell the Package Don't just state numbers—help them understand the full value.

You won't win every candidate against Big Tech. But for the right person at the right time, your startup offers something they can't get anywhere else. Find those people and show them why.