Comment by ZhadruOmjar

In my experience there has never been a good time to be a founding engineer even in companies that have later made it. It's much better to join the company 1-3 years prior to IPO/Sale where you get many of the benefits but significantly less stress. If I had worked at startups I would have been taking a 30-40% pay cut compared to the roles I did work and none of those startups have gone anywhere with most crashing and burning.