Joined an AI startup. Quit within a month
First-time poster, long-time lurker. Just wanted to get something off my chest.
I’ve been in the industry for over a decade. In my last company, I was part of the early team exploring and building with Gen AI. We worked on internal tools, helped other teams adopt AI in their workflows and shipped products that actually made it to clients. It was impactful and exciting in the beginning but things started to go stale. No one knew why AI is being pushed everywhere - demos and POCs built by everyone and everywhere but rarely anything productionised. By early this year, things started to feel stagnant and I wanted to explore what else was out there.
I got an inbound from an early-stage AI startup. Seemed fast-moving, ambitious, and aligned with my goals. I interviewed, accepted the offer, left my stable role and joined them. Also, the CTC they were offering was higher than current comp, so felt like a no-brainer.
First week: intense but expected. Startup life, right?
But very quickly, I realized the work wasn’t what I thought it would be. I’m an engineering leader but a tech-first one. I like to be in and around code, architecture, systems. What I landed into was something far from that. Long hours, constant context-switching and a role that drifted far from my core skills.
To make it worse, the product wasn’t aligned with what I wanted to work on - I had hoped it would be a deep vertical AI product, but it felt more like generic horizontal SaaS all over again. And I’ve done that grind before. I didn’t want to spend the next couple of years firefighting and moving further away from the parts of tech I truly enjoy.
So one month in, I made a call. Had a transparent conversation with the founders and left.
It was not easy. But I didn't want to waste their time or mine.
Maybe I could have waited a few months to adjust to this role and get myself some time to evaluate but at this point in my career, that felt dishonest to myself. Didn't want to make that compromise.
Here’s what I learned : At a senior level, especially if you're switching from something stable, spend time really understanding the role, the product and the kind of work you’ll be doing. Reach out to folks in your network. Don't get swayed by just comp or startup buzz. Alignment matters. Fit goes both ways.
What now?? Taken a short break, cleared my head and I’m back exploring. If your company is:
- Building something interesting in AI (especially vertical AI)
- Needs ICs or EMs who can be hands-on
- Is forming or growing its AI org inside a traditional company
…I’d love to chat. I’ve been working actively in the applied AI space for 2.5 years and have 11 years overall in tech across engineering, architecture and team leadership. Still close to the code, still excited to build.
Previous comp: 80L fixed + 8L variable + 28L ESOP Latest (startup) comp: 95L fixed + 15L variable + early-stage equity
Talking product sense with Ridhi
9 min AI interview5 questions
Your tech stack in AI space please, will be helpful for juniors
Notify me
Hey it’s python for backend services like fastapi, django etc whatever makes it up and running quick or depending on client requirements. React with Vite for front-end.
For Gen AI related frameworks, I have used different libraries like Langchain, Llama Index, Crew AI/Taskweaver for agent orchestration depending on project requirements/client constraints. If you’re starting out, just pick one and explore - I would say pick langchain. If you really want to learn however, don’t use any libraries, just directly call the OpenAI APIs (or whichever LLM you want to use).
I would definitely say use Cursor or Windsurf for your coding but please don’t use these blindly. Think about the problem first, break it down and then let Cursor do the grunt work of coding.
Look up other things like vector stores, chunking etc. Chromadb, qdrant are open source and popular vector stores used at scale.
Look up prompt guides released by anthropic and google - they are super helpful as well.
Ah man Sorry that the move did not work out for you
I guess there's a dearth of proper AI startups in India right now I think looking at AI within existing orgs may make a lot of sense (except places like Sarvam etc)
And see if moving out is an option or working remotely with AI companies outside of India, given that might give your career the biggest alpha
I agree with the remote AI company role advice, been contemplating and reaching the same conclusion. AI work in US companies is so much in-depth and I would say ‘meaningful’. Have a few discussions ongoing with us based start ups, let’s see where they go
Lol unsure, how with someone with so much experience can’t align himself of what role he is getting into. Feels like Grapevine has become a place to write all the corporate stories.
To be honest, if you are an engineering manager with over a decade experience and you joining companies for the sake of compensation without even understanding role and responsibility. You are just another person in the company who is earning a big package and does nothing lol.
I didn’t want to point any fingers at the company in the post but what they told me in the interview and what I saw after joining was completely different. Even the JD was not super honest with the line of work. Obviously, I am to blame as well. I should have tried to find more details through my network, but it’s an up and coming company and I had no mutuals.
One feedback I gave to them on my exit was that they should be super clear in their interviews about the body of work (which frankly they were not with me) which they agreed.
So not a matter of “does nothing”. I didn’t reach this point of my career by doing nothing
@JumbledBlurry with so much good experience and being so specific about what you want your work to be like you must have list of other companies who do deep AI work why do you want opinion from other people ?
Also why don't you wanna start something of your own and be make it big rather than building for others?
Valid points
- I’m in fact reaching out and talking to companies who are doing deep AI work at this moment. AI is at a super early stage in India , so I unfortunately don’t have a lot of data to make the right calls all the time. This post mainly an off the chest post :). However I still want to know interesting products being built in India right now and if things vibe would love to be a part of it as well. Hence the post
- I actually have started on my own earlier in my career but it didn’t work out. Constantly think about doing it again but I guess the previous scars haven’t healed yet. It’s difficult to explain but understanding my own limitations have been a learning with my start up and I definitely know I don’t want to start up right now.
Hope it answers your questions !
Gotcha but for the 2nd point I kindly of resonate with you personally so what are those scars in terms of starting up is it govt regulations, financial or technological or is it something else @JumbledBlurry
Hey. Would be happy to have a chat. We have two of the problems you mentioned. Building Vertical AI, forming an AI Org internally to help our customer success which is very critical to success for our product. Please drop me a DM if can. We are in our 1-10 growth stage right now and not super early stage, over 25+ paying enterprise customers.
Thank you! Sent a DM!
I quit my first startup 5 days after joining, the work wasn't what I was promised, some bs data scraping from booking.com
Good decision! Life is too short to work on things you don’t believe in.
Could you define vertical AI vs. horizontal SaaS? Maybe quote a few examples?
Horizontal AI-SaaS = “do-anything” building blocks any business can plug in (ex: MS Office for AI)
Vertical AI-SaaS = “do-one-thing brilliantly” systems wired into an industry’s daily workflow (think something along solving a very specific issue in healthcare)
Glean - example of horizontal SAAS Hippocratic AI - example of vertical
Good call. Companies will build what clients want not what an engineering leader wants
Dude that sucks tbh. I think you are not made for this
US is your mecca