> you may find yourself having to explain your decisions/code to people who's engineering skills are 'being able to convince a VC to give them money'

> you'll also probably not tackle 'large problems' but hack and slash a Node/Django/React app into meeting an MVP

Those hit way too close to home for me. I made the mistake of joining such a business when I was fresh from college and broke. The only good thing that happened is that I got some savings out of it. Issues included broken spaghetti code, hacking together MVPs with enough fancy graphics to impress clients (faking it all the way), and having to explain to my tech illiterate boss why I couldn't "just fix it" on the harder problems.

Oh, and the micromanaging is real too. It can wreck your mind to the point of needing professional help.

The real kicker was that it was all on an indefinite "contract" (1099 but you sit in the office like a regular worker - I already filed the IRS contest forms) with low pay and zero benefits. Never working at an early startup again.