FoundingHunt vs YC Work at a Startup: which fits your founding-role search?

Use FoundingHunt for a curated, cross-company search limited to founding-team roles, with every listing labeled for its equity evidence and applications that go straight to the employer. Use YC Work at a Startup when you specifically want YC companies and are willing to apply through one shared profile. Running both is reasonable: they overlap on early-stage startups but answer different questions.

By FoundingHunt · Published September 14, 2026

FoundingHunt publishes this comparison and is one of the two services in it. Recommendations describe use cases, not a winner. We apply the same questions to both services and explain where the other one may fit you better.

Compare at a glance

Access and accounts: FoundingHuntFully public browsing without an account, with role, stage, location and remote filters. Email subscription is optional and not required to view or apply.; YC Work at a StartupLanding and category pages show a public sample of jobs with salary, location and posting age. Browsing the full inventory and applying requires a YC account; the provider says one profile applies to many jobs and founders can contact you.
Finding founding roles: FoundingHuntEvery listing passes a human founding-scope review before publication; live categories span engineering, product, design, GTM/sales and operations. The trade-off is a smaller, curated set rather than high volume.; YC Work at a StartupNine role categories span engineering, design, product, recruiting, sales, marketing, support, operations and science, all inside YC companies. Founding-titled roles appear across functions (three of 36 sampled operations cards; two of 38 sampled engineering cards), mixed with non-founding roles; no founding filter was found on public pages.
Equity information: FoundingHuntEvery listing carries one labeled state: Verified Equity (employer-disclosed range), Est. Equity (a FoundingHunt Benchmark, not an offer) or Equity unavailable. Sampled cards show a salary range alongside the equity label.; YC Work at a StartupCategory cards do not show equity. Job detail pages show an employer-disclosed equity range on some listings (0.10 to 2.00 percent on a founding engineering page; 0.40 to 0.50 percent on a founding operations page) and no equity figure on others (a staff engineering page). Salary appears on most cards but not all.
Application workflow: FoundingHuntApplication links go to the employer's own hiring destination, such as its Ashby page. No FoundingHunt account is needed to apply.; YC Work at a StartupApplying runs through the shared YC profile rather than the employer's external site; the provider says founders can also reach out to you. The account-based flow itself was not tested.
Geography and remote: FoundingHuntEach listing states its location and work policy; remote categories cover global, US and EU. This review does not establish a service-wide visa or worldwide eligibility promise.; YC Work at a StartupSampled listings span San Francisco, New York, London, Toronto, Bengaluru and more, with remote entries often restricted by country, for example Remote (US; CA). Visa eligibility is stated per listing, from US citizen/visa only to not required.
Freshness signals: FoundingHuntThe published policy states monitoring coverage varies by hiring source, with no universal recheck interval; listings can be hidden or removed. No per-listing last-checked date is shown publicly.; YC Work at a StartupCards display posting age. The engineering sample ranged from hours to about two weeks old; the operations sample ranged from about 14 hours to about 3 months. Older listings remain visible, so confirm with the company that a role is still open.

Where each service fits

FoundingHunt

Curated founding-role job board.

A good fit if: You want to search only founding-team roles across companies and functions, with every listing labeled for its equity evidence, and apply directly through the employer's own hiring page without creating an account.
Main limitation: A curated selection is not comprehensive coverage, and Estimated Equity is a benchmark, not an employer offer. Freshness monitoring varies by hiring source, and appearing on the board does not guarantee the employer is still accepting applications.
How to use it: Browse by role, stage and location, then read the equity label first: Verified Equity is employer-disclosed, Est. Equity is a benchmark. Apply through the employer's destination and confirm the terms with them.

Visit FoundingHunt

YC Work at a Startup

YC-company job platform.

A good fit if: You specifically want to work at a YC company, value a single profile that applies to many portfolio jobs, and want founders to be able to contact you.
Main limitation: Only YC companies are listed, and public categories mix founding-titled roles with later-stage hires, so you screen for founding scope yourself. Full browsing and applying require a YC account.
How to use it: Scan the public role and location pages first; look for founding titles and early team context, then open the job page for salary and any disclosed equity. Create the shared profile only when you intend to apply.

Visit YC Work at a Startup

When each service earns a place in your search

The two services answer different questions. FoundingHunt answers “show me genuine founding-team roles, whatever company they are at.” YC Work at a Startup answers “show me jobs inside YC’s portfolio.” The results overlap, because early YC companies hire founding-titled people, but the scope rules differ, so the answers do not match.

Use both if

You want founding scope and you are open to YC companies. Run FoundingHunt for the curated cross-company view, then use YC Work at a Startup to catch portfolio roles a curated board has not listed. One shared YC profile complements, rather than replaces, direct employer applications.

How the two workflows differ

Finding a founding role

On FoundingHunt, founding scope is the entry condition: a human reviews each listing against that policy before it goes live, so the filter work happens before you arrive. On YC Work at a Startup, founding-titled roles sit inside broad role categories alongside staff, senior and manager hires at companies founded years earlier. You do the screening: read the title, the team size and the role page before deciding it is early enough for you.

Reading the equity

FoundingHunt labels every listing: Verified Equity when the employer disclosed a range, Est. Equity when the number is a benchmark estimate, or Equity unavailable. On YC Work at a Startup, equity is employer-disclosed per listing: some job pages show a numeric range, others show none, and category cards do not carry it. In both cases, treat the number as the start of a conversation about vesting, dilution and exercise, not the whole offer.

Applying

FoundingHunt sends you to the employer’s own hiring destination with no account in between. YC Work at a Startup routes applications through one shared profile, which can apply to many portfolio companies and lets founders contact you. The first keeps each application separate and employer-direct; the second trades a single sign-up for a reusable profile inside one portfolio.

A practical way to run the search

Write down your constraints first. Location and work authorization, minimum cash compensation, the stage you want, and the scope you want to own.
Start with the workflow that matches your question. Cross-company founding scope, or YC portfolio membership. Pick one as primary.
Add the second channel only if it fills a real gap. For most founding-role seekers that means adding YC Work at a Startup for portfolio coverage, or adding FoundingHunt for companies outside the portfolio.
Check the evidence on the role before applying. Salary, equity source, team size, posting age and visa terms. A listing card is a lead, not a verified offer.
Confirm the destination and the terms. Direct employer application or shared YC profile; either way, verify cash, equity, vesting and location with the employer.

What neither service can establish for you

Whether the role is still open. Both services rely on employer or source data that can age.
Whether “founding” in the title means first-ten scope. Team size and the role page tell you more than the title.
What the equity is worth. Vesting, dilution, exercise terms and the fully diluted basis matter more than the headline percentage.
Whether you are eligible. Visa and location rules are per employer and per listing.

Read the existing guides on founding-role red flags, equity offers and how we label equity. They help frame the questions; they cannot verify a particular employer for you.

Corrections

If a service description or source is wrong, email support (at) foundinghunt.com with the page URL and supporting evidence. We can review the correction. A changed or unavailable source alone does not prove that an employer has stopped hiring.