Depending on whom you ask, there are tens of millions of startup businesses created around the world every year. They bring dynamism, speed, and growth to national economies — and fresh ideas and disruption to potentially staid industries. At a macro level, they help solve problems in sectors as diverse as finance and healthcare, making economies richer and societies more harmonious. But what’s it like to work in the IT engine room of such a company?

Given that startups are arguably more reliant on digital services and workflows than traditional incumbents, IT jobs at startups often present a very different set of challenges. On the one hand, they may offer more control, dynamism, and a focus on personal relationships. On the other hand, they might also produce frustration, with resource constraints and a lack of well defined processes.

AccessOwl sat down with some IT managers and operations specialists at leading global startups to find out more. They shared the following observations:

More control over tooling

Former Solidatus IT Support Manager Peter Fallowfield claims that IT peers at larger companies don’t have the same exposure to IT tools that he does — or the power to change officially sanctioned apps.

“The problem working at bigger companies is that people using the tools aren't the ones that get to choose it — which is why I much prefer working in the startup,” he says. “If I don't like the way a certain tool is, I can just find something better and change it.”

At the same time, with IT automation doing plenty of the heavy lifting these days, it’s important for IT admins to build personal relationships at their startup, explains Rep Data IT Operations Specialist & System Network Administrator Grant Bordelon.

“Where I've been able to thrive and shine is just that personal touch. You don’t want to be that out-of-touch IT guy that says ‘put in a ticket, we'll get to it’,” he says. “As things get more and more automated, that personal touch becomes more necessary. With that, I find that more trust goes into the people than into the technology.”

Constrained resources

Despite the promise of automated tooling, headcount can be a persistent challenge at startups, according to former Airtower Networks IT Manager Derek McGee.

“There are several projects that I'm trying to delay, just so that we can get to a point where I can get a team in place — or at least hire some outside contractors to help with some of them,” he explains.

“Unfortunately, different companies operate differently, and budgets are also different. So sometimes we have to make compromises, and this is one of the compromises I'm having to make — having outside help that maybe you can't get in touch with all the time, versus inside help.”

Resource constraints also limit how much an IT Manager can focus on “big picture stuff” versus regular, everyday tasks, he adds.

Wesley Laughlin, Information Security and Technology Manager at Quantum Workplace, says that tight budgets also put more pressure on IT to collect data that can justify expanding headcount.

“It’s about being organized and staying organized. That’s a huge one,” he says. “It’s been super valuable to meticulously track our efforts on different things. That way, we have real data and justification whenever it's time to spend money. Although sometimes it’s really tough when things are moving so fast, and you can't document everything.”

Flexibility meets risk

Startups — which often lack strict (or any) processes and workflows — can feel quite liberating for IT operations teams. But that can create problems, when employees are free to download and use any SaaS apps they want, says Arek Czub, IT Engineer at Relational AI.

“What I then see is security risk upon security risk, especially when it comes to user management,” he adds. “In a company’s early stage, they just want to get the work started and not spend too much time on the details. But when I come in, the real adventure begins — because there’s really a lot to be done.”

Sometimes, there’s so little visibility and process that the organization itself doesn’t even realize what’s at stake — which can make life challenging for the first IT manager.

“For any startup, there’s going to be a mountain of problems, and I’ll need a way to track them — because they don’t even know they have problems until they have someone there to fix them,” says Airtower Networks’s McGee. “And once the door opens, the floodgates release.”

Depending on the culture at the organization, IT is forgotten about in the race for growth and profits — a stance that often backfires, according to Liam Williamson, TrueLayer IT Manager.

“IT is often an afterthought when you're trying to scale a company — it's mostly about sales and product,” he says. “It's all about the company trying to get their product out there, and sometimes when I come into a newer company like TrueLayer — no one has really thought about IT, until it becomes a thing. So they were just doing IT in a sort of piecemeal, unstructured way.”

Rapid growth and a steep learning curve

Yet when that first IT manager or administrator is hired, the amount of hands-on work that IT staff need to do day-to-day will rapidly accelerate their knowledge and on-the-job learning, says Lukasz Jaroszuk, Certified IT Manager at Kaia Health. The challenge here is not letting it overwhelm you.

“I gained five year’s worth of experience within one year, because the team is so small that you're working with DevOps, you're working with compliance, you're working with the salespeople — you're working with pretty much everybody,” he says.

“You’re a connector, and sadly you're a little bit of an invisible connector, because that's the thing about IT. If it works correctly, you don't see the IT guys. But my head was hurting at some stage. It was so much to take in.”

This embodies the challenge-and-opportunity dilemma of working in IT at a startup. It can be a great learning opportunity and an empowering experience — but one that’s balanced with some on-the-job frustrations and resource constraints.