[aefeuer]

Hey man,

Thanks for posting here...I can't speak for big companies but I wouldn't be so reluctant to apply to a startup.

First of all, I'd say that most startups growing quickly will judge engineering candidates on merit, not connections. If you're a startup growing aggressively, hiring great people is so important that you end up using your personal networks not to filter candidates but rather to find more candidates than you'd otherwise get through people who apply cold. For our team, if we saw two brilliant engineers, a PhD who applied cold, and another wonderful fellow with a connection to our team, we'd hire both.

I'm sure there are some stereotypes about PhDs, but I'd be surprised to find a startup that held it against you. One piece is advice...I think showing humility is important. I've seen some PhDs who want to join our team and dive right in (that's great!) while others are only interested in leading a research team or something fancy like that even though they have no work experience (that's not great). I'll always give someone the benefit of the doubt so I won't assume that any PhD I meet is too big for his/her britches, but as a PhD applicant I think it's important to understand that anyone leading hiring has probably seen plenty of PhDs who don't come to the table with the humility you need for a startup job.

Last thought -- the one challenge in applying to startups is to make sure they don't accidentally reject you, e.g. we're a relatively small team and we get thousands of applications a year, and we try our darndest to read every one and review every code challenge and take everyone seriously. That said, I'm sure we make mistakes every now and then, and we overlook someone who's awesome. As an applicant, one way you can avoid that is to make yourself stand out. Was your PhD research really fascinating? Have you built something cool? etc. For example, people sometimes email me as the CEO instead of applying through our web site. It happens often enough that in most cases I'll introduce them to the head of recruiting on our team; I can't get involved personally every time or it's all I'd do every day. But if someone really stands out when they email me -- and in a substantive way -- I'll pay attention.

Sorry man, I know the job search is hard, especially coming out of a PhD program, but the good news is that you're in a highly competitive job market for engineers and most companies are hiring on merit.

PS if you're looking in Boston, feel free to email me [e-mail] (Panorama YC S13)