YC Work at a Startup
YC Work at a Startup is a job board scoped to Y Combinator alumni only. We index those companies too, alongside everyone else.
Last updated August 12, 2026
Which is right for you?
Pick YC Work at a Startup if
- You specifically want to work at a YC-backed company.
- You value the YC network and want a single profile that reaches all of them.
- You like the founder-direct application flow with disclosed equity ranges.
- You are early-career and treat YC as a meaningful signal on company quality.
Side by side
| Criterion | YC Work at a Startup | HireHoot |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | Y Combinator alumni only | Every company with a clean ATS feed |
| Apply flow | Platform-hosted, single profile | Direct to the employer's ATS |
| Salary disclosure | Often disclosed, varies | Filter for disclosed only |
| Equity disclosure | Often disclosed (range) | Not surfaced |
| Founder-direct messaging | Yes | No |
| Company filter by batch / stage | YC batch, stage, team size | Size and funding stage, not batch |
| Industry diversity | Tech / consumer / fintech focused | 18-category taxonomy |
| Resume tailoring (AI) | Not native | Built in |
| Interview preparation | Not native | Briefing per role, plus a scored spoken mock interview |
| Email job alerts | Yes, on saved searches | Yes (instant, daily, or weekly digests) |
| Native mobile app | No (responsive web) | No (responsive web) |
| Pricing for jobseekers | Free | Free board; credits for the AI steps |
| Pricing for employers | Free, but YC alumni only (gated to current and former portfolio companies) | Free. We index your ATS automatically, or post directly at /app/post-job for free |
Where YC Work at a Startup is genuinely strong
If "I want to work at a YC company" is a real constraint of your search, Work at a Startup is the right tool. Every listing is, by definition, a YC alum, and the single-profile-to-many-companies flow plus founder-direct messaging is a real reduction in friction inside that universe.
For a candidate who treats YC as a meaningful filter on company quality and culture, that gating is the feature, not the limit.
Where HireHoot fits
HireHoot indexes every company we can pull a clean listing for, with no gating on accelerator or fund. A YC company, a bootstrapped one, and a fifty-year-old industrial firm sit on the same board, sorted by recency and filtered by the criteria you pick.
YC companies are still on the board (we pull their listings the same as anyone else's). You just see them next to every other company hiring for the same role. Salary transparency is a filter you turn on, not a culture marker, so the listings that hide compensation drop away regardless of whose accelerator the company went through. And once you pick one, the tailoring, the prep briefing and the practice interview are on the same page as the job.