Excellent article on misconceptions about startup jobs for technical people — http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2012/07/08/dont-waste-your-time-in-crappy-startup-jobs/
Many points are dead on, yet somehow very rarely get stated. A tidbit that resonates with me: startups are often perceived as places where engineers will be changing the world. Yet, as the article correctly points out, “with some exceptions, startups are generally not vehicles for world-changing visions. Startups need to think about earning revenue within the existing world, not changing humanity as we know it. Most of them are application-level concepts that fill out an existing world-changing trend (like the Internet) but not primary drivers. “