kirbypineapple

I have about 10 years experience as a full stack developer with about 2 years experience in a system architecture role. I have the opportunity to accept a position as the CTO of a startup (about 10 employees). The startup has an existing product and has a pretty solid plan on how to build out their platform. It's not going to be the next facebook by any stretch of the imagination, but it does have potential.

My current job is extremely stable and I am very well compensated compared to my peers. I am, naturally, quite reluctant to take a leap of faith like this. I believe my compensation would be within %5 of my current salary, and my equity would be reasonable for my position and the stage that the startup is at.

My question is this: would the trajectory of my career be drastically changed by taking a CTO position for 3 - 5 years at a startup? Or would other companies in the future just look up this company and realize very quickly that it is a pretty small operation? I'm weighing best and worst case scenarios here...worst case is that the company goes bust and I have 3 - 4 years of experience as CTO of a startup.