If I were to join a startup as an engineer, these would be my top priorities:

1. The Team: Are they inspiring? Would I learn anything from them? Do they have what it takes? Are they motivated and full of energy? And ofc - do I like their personalities.

2. The product: Does it seem to have traction? Do investors believe in it? I wouldn't necessary have to believe fully in the idea myself, unless I have a deep knowledge within the industry. As an outsider, it's difficult to fully understand the demands in the given market.

3. Title/equity/salary: Show respect and show much you value their skills. This has to be reflected in the salary, equity and/or title. Idk if this is just my perception, but I sense that there's nothing engineers hate more than a bossy business guy that doesn't fully appreciate and understand the work of the engineer. Several times, I've been asked by some MBA guys to take on a CTO role and join as the 2nd/3rd co-founder, but would only offer a relatively small equity share (most recently 16% max in a tech startup before investments). This is a sure turnoff as I don't feel like they value engineering skills enough

Earn enough to pay my bills, don't take up too much of my time and energy (so I can spend it on my own life and projects). Remote only, async bonus - few meetings as possible. Doesn't need to be an engineering-led company, but also don't interfere with them.

For me, purpose, passion, etc come from working with a good team to build the best thing we can. Industry is a bit less relevant, unless it's really low brow stuff.

Sprints, agile, whatever don't matter to me, if it doesn't turn into a grind of the same dumb meeting every day/week where nothing of value is answered.

Product companies over agencies and non-tech companies - with agencies you have to justify your existence constantly (and you're a line item), and non-tech companies just don't understand the work and will undermine you. Product companies are where ideally peace can be found and there's enough stability to grow your career.

Remote First.
Product-minded

• Somewhere i know i can make the most impact within the first 6 months of joining.

When I was interested in being an employee (not anymore) at a typical VC backed startup I looked for the following:
1. Consistent and strong revenue growth every month (should be 50%+ MoM for an early stage company, otherwise I'd assume someone is asleep at the wheel) i.e. growth potential. Example: OpenAI grew something like 4000% last year (even as a late stage startup)
2. Above average pay and equity
3. Strong leadership team where I felt I could learn something from them. I didn't care how famous/iconic the leaders were. I just avoided places where the leadership team was checked out or toxic, or made the wrong business decisions, which I figured out quickly by asking employees how they liked the leadership team during the interview. People are surprisingly honest if you just ask them direct questions like that.

I also exclusively interviewed at places where I already had a referral from someone I trusted which weeded out a lot of trash companies.

I did not care about:
- Number of meetings
- Requirement to be in office or not
- Vacation days
- Teambuilding/"culture" activities/events
- Titles

Because I was interested in growing my net worth and scaling up my skills as fast as possible. I was willing to move to wherever to make it happen.

If I had to pick one factor that was the most important, it was the leadership team strength which is what in my experience causes a high growth company to succeed or fail. A lot of other things can be fixed later but toxic or incompetent management is a tough one to deal with.

For me it's some mix of 1, 7, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21.