Working at Trinsic

About a month ago I left my startup job at Trinsic to join Cloudflare. I knew moving from a startup to a large org would feel odd (that was part of the appeal), but I’m still surprised by how awkward I feel sometimes. It seems that I had more startup DNA than I expected.

My story with Trinsic started back in Fall 2021. They were still figuring out the decentralized identity problem, and I was just starting my junior year at BYU. I interned with them for about six months. My time at Trinsic was productive. I liked my teammates and saw potential in the product, but I didn’t totally feel like I got it.

I wanted to experience something more traditional. I went on to my internship at Pluralsight, and later got offered a job at Amazon to start after I graduated. I kept tabs on Trinsic, though. I was still curious what it might be like if I gave it my full focus. No classes, no split attention. It was an idea that kept pulling at me.

In December 2022, Amazon pushed my start date from June to December 2023. I was graduating in April, and suddenly I had a big gap to fill. I thought of Trinsic again; maybe this was my chance to really see what startup life was like. So I reached out to Riley, the CEO, explained my situation, and asked if they’d take me back. They said yes.

At first, I saw it as an experiment. I wasn’t fully committed and still thought about my offer from Amazon. But as I settled in, I realized I didn’t want to leave. I wanted to stay and help this company take off. It felt right to be there. I was growing and working well with my teammates, especially with my manager, JP (who went on to become a dear friend and trusted mentor).

At the end of the year, I had to make a decision to stay at Trinsic or go work at Amazon. I chose to stay, because I believed in the challenge ahead. By then, it was becoming clear that our original product wasn’t going to work. We started to experiment with digital identity verification. Eventually, we made the call to pivot.

That pivot became official in Spring 2024. To fund it, we had to make tough calls, including a round of layoffs in June. We kept the brand but rebooted everything else. Suddenly, I wasn’t just another product engineer on the team. I was one of the founding engineers. The engineering team was down to three: JP, Josh (my senior), and me.

We worked fast and close, with very little overhead. There wasn’t much process; just trust, speed, and lots of ownership. Ideas came straight from customer conversations. Specs were minimal, and we had to wear many hats. It was exhilarating and intense, but at some point I started to feel like if we failed, it would be because I didn’t execute well enough. That pressure crept into my evenings and weekends. I wasn’t working crazy hours, but I never fully disconnected. I pushed hard, and eventually I burned out.

Here’s the upside: the work paid off. We started signing small deals. We had real conversations with bigger companies. We sunset the old SSI product and let go of the last customers tied to it. Things were starting to click. The downside? I was tired. I had given everything I had to give. So I started quietly looking for what might come next.

It took time, but eventually I found an opportunity at Cloudflare that felt exciting. I took it, and I’ve been here about a month now. It’s been a good change, though not without its own challenges. I’m still finding my footing. I don’t have much context yet, and I don’t know many people.

At Trinsic, my team was small, tight, and close. We didn’t have ceremony. We didn’t even have meetings most days. Work and life blended together in a way that, for better or worse, became familiar. Here, I’ve realized I have almost no “corporate etiquette.” I say what’s on my mind, and I often forget protocol. It still feels strange to spend a lot of time talking about how we’re going to do something, instead of just doing it. But I get it; these conversations eliminate ambiguity, which makes the actual execution faster and more aligned.

This structure exists for a reason. Trinsic had fewer than 10 employees; the BI team at Cloudflare has over 80. At Trinsic, speed was survival. Here, success depends on alignment and cohesion.

Anyway, what I want to say is that I’m grateful I had the chance to be part of an early-stage startup. Even though I burned out, I know I gave it everything. And I’m proud of that. I still believe Trinsic has a real shot at building something big, and I’m happy I got to be a meaningful part of it.

I hope every engineer gets a chance like that at some point. Working at Trinsic early on changed my career. I learned to care about the real stuff: solving actual problems, shipping actual value. I wore many hats and faced problems I’d never encountered. I became a better developer—and more importantly, someone who cared deeply about the product, the craft, and the outcome.

People talk a lot about work-life balance. And yeah, I got burned out. But here’s the thing: looking back, I felt most fulfilled when I cared deeply about what I was doing. It’s good to have boundaries, but the truth is: you spend a lot of your life working. You might as well care. Work shouldn’t be your whole life, but it is a big part of it. When you care, the whole picture feels better. I cared deeply about Trinsic, and I still do.

One of the highest-leverage things you can do in your career as a software engineer is simply to care. I have Trinsic to thank for that lesson.