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The strongest professional connections still happen the old-fashioned way â in person. Throughout the past year, our Founders You Should Know showcase became the backdrop for three career-defining moments: a recent grad choosing a startup over Google, a Meta engineer successfully transitioning to developer relations, and a founder-turned-employee who got hired on the spot. Their stories illustrate something we see repeatedly: a face-to-face conversation with the right founder can transform your career.
In anticipation of our September 10th showcase, we're sharing three success stories from previous attendees below.
Tanzir Hasan, Software Engineer @ Traba
Traba connects businesses with vetted workers for light industrial staffing needs.
Tanzir arrived at our New York showcase with a clear path ahead: big tech after graduation, then maybe a startup "down the line." Listening to founders share their stories that day completely changed his trajectory. âI listened to the conversations that were happening, and that made me want to shift courses completely,â Tanzir recalls. He was feeling apprehensive about joining big tech â he wanted to do something far more impactful that also aligned with his goals of being a founder one day.
When he met Trabaâs founder Mike Shebat at the event, he knew he'd found his answer. "He was extremely ambitious. I was like, 'I can definitely see myself working for this guy.'" He had found a company where the founders were determined to do the seemingly impossible: build a trillion dollar company.
Mike reached out about open roles shortly after, and Tanzir took the leap. Nearly 1.5 years later, he's still with Traba as a Software Engineer, having traded the Google offer for startup experience that's directly aligned with his entrepreneurial ambitions.
Vashisht Anand, AI Strategist @ Distyl
Distyl builds AI Systems trusted by the F500 to power their business.
Vashisht first attended our showcase in February of this year, fresh off of shutting down his AI startup. A community member had recommended the show, and he arrived open to whatever opportunities might emerge.
When Arjun Prakash pitched Distyl that evening, Vashisht knew heâd found what he was looking for.
âWhat Distyl does made immediate sense to me, and Arjun was the only founder who I wanted to circle back to,â he recalls. The two talked twice that evening and hit it off. Arjun set up a call with his co-founder and Vashisht the next day, and within 30 minutes, Vashisht had an offer in his inbox. He signed immediately and started work the day after.
Three factors sold him on Distyl: the room for growth, the market opportunity, and Arjunâs infectious enthusiasm. âI could tell Arjun was very sharp from our first conversation, and there was a natural alignment and instant connection. For anything up to Series C, your ethos has to align with the founder for a good cultural fit.â
Adel Wu, Developer Relations Lead @ Reducto
Reducto offers robust and reliable documentation ingestion for any workflow.
By late 2024, Adel was three years into her role as a Software Engineer at Meta and decided it was time to shift gears. She knew she wanted to work at a high-growth startup, but from inside of big techâs walls, struggled to develop intuition about which companies were actually worth joining. She turned to our showcase to get a curated view of which founders were executing well and what high-growth potential actually looks like in practice.
When Adit Abraham pitched Reducto at the show, he wasn't hiring for the kind of role Adel wanted â she was actively looking to transition away from software engineering to something more community oriented. "I connected with the founder afterwards anyway to put myself on their radar," she says, recognizing the value of building relationships even when no immediate opportunity existed.
This connection paid off. A few months later, Reducto opened applications for a Developer Relations position. Because Adel had already established a connection through the showcase, she could reach out directly on LinkedIn to express her interest, skipping the typical cold application process.
The role was a great fit. Now 5 months in to her new position as Reductoâs Developer Relations Lead, she gets to leverage both her technical background and the relationship-building approach that got her the role in the first place.
What words of advice do you have for engineers looking for new roles at startups?
Adel: âthe startup industry is oddly small. So when you get more integrated into the ecosystem, opportunities will sometimes come from places you donât expect. There are a lot of nontraditional avenues to hiring in the startup world that donât exist in the larger corporate world. So, Iâd say just try to get involved and meet people, and always follow up if youâre interested. You never know what could happen.â
Tanzir: âIf youâre in the right team at big tech working on the right project you can maybe get some strong growth. But thereâs so much variance. With startups, you have a lot more control over your outcomes in the sense that youâre probably working on a smaller set of things that are very impactful.
Everything is a lot faster, and the expectations are higher. You could get away with a lot less in big tech. The speed at which you get feedback and have to iterate is a lot faster at startups, which means you get to improve at your craft faster and progress in your career.â
Vashisht: âVibe attracts vibe. Meeting founders and decision-makers in person is the best way Iâve found my next career moves.â
Life after the showcase
All three of these FYSK community members joined at inflecting moments of growth, and have seen their team undergo rapid expansion.
Tanzir was hired when Traba had less than 60 employees. The team has since tripled in size.
Adel joined as employee number 11 in the spring and has watched the team double. âThere was basically no marketing or go-to-market team. It was mostly all engineering,â she shares. âSo itâs been really exciting to see how much ownership I have and how I can just execute on my ideas.â
Vashisht joined Distyl when the team was less than 50 people. Itâs now grown to over 100 employees while expanding the productâs scale, direction, and diversity. âItâs exactly what I envisioned it to be. This is an incredibly competent team with high agency, and everyone hits the ground running from day one.â
Want to be our next success story? Apply now for our September 10th Founders You Should Know showcase to meet 10 breakout founders in person and find out why their companies could be your next career move.