Ask HN: How do you cope when your startup contracts?

The same general situation has happened to me twice now and I am wondering if it’s something I can break free from or if it’s just the nature of the Startup beast - or what. There seems to be some kind of bubble that starts drying up investment in a startup where I am a technical lead. Both times, things seem to be going well and then 2 years in there are rounds of layoffs due to factors outside my/product’s control where the result is the same. I end up as the last tech generalist. It falls to me to write as much of the code as I can, manage (if any are left) engineers in my department, running support basically on my own, owning a large part of the product roadmap, working with the customers on support and implementations, working with integration partners, plus a slowly expanding list of responsibilities as new stuff falls on reduced teams. I pick up new domains pretty quick (finance, insurance, compliance), switch contexts well. I’ve always been the person who just figures it out - someone who takes ownership of something and just does it. But, instead of being rewarded, I just get to keep my job while absorbing the work of others less fortunate. During these contractions, the work never shrinks. Same clients, same integrations, same support volume (for now). Something else I’ve noticed is the scrutiny goes up - not down. I think a big factor is you have founders and upper managers stepping in to be more engaged or attempting to cover gaps. This causes all sorts of issues. After this last round of cuts, the company offered me a revised title and job description that focused on managing the department that now was essentially just me down from 6 a year ago. It was full of responsibilities like “leading team to meet targets”. I did kind of want to accept it since it is the sort of role I was hired for and would help in a job search later. Regardless, I couldn’t because I am basically the team. It felt like a trap (or at least, wishful thinking that has been proven