If I can change the situation, I will be a part of this team. The tech team has been treated as full-time employees for the last two years in terms of being available from 9 to 6, doing daily standups, reporting that the work gets done, sending sick leave emails, and cutting money because of that "skipped" days. Never get any "paid holidays" or something. Most of the time, my rate was less than 25usd per hour. Taking the worst part of being a contractor and employee is my daily life. This is our first "international job" for the second developer and me. Hence, we were happy just taking it and believing in the founder's promises of higher salary and equity options. If trusted to my profile on carta.com, the options equity is about 0.8%. My friends with experience in startups said it's ridiculous. Only a tiny contractor's hourly rate with a small amount of equity for such hard work to make the company profitable. We did it but got no bonuses besides "Thank you! Let's work harder!"