A lot of red flags. Office vibe felt gloomy. The CEO comes across as Gilfoyle from HBO’s Silicon Valley. I’ll give him credit, he was fairly up front that this would be a job with zero work-life balance, and where he expects over 50 hours a week minimum. Fundamentally wants to hire people as similar to himself as possible, who don’t have lives outside of work, and seems unconcerned about excessive overtime. The company is your home and family. CEO is clearly a perfectionist, and the culture felt fairly toxic (he basically said that for the first two months or so, a new hire’s code would be picked apart mercilessly until it was up to his standards. I’m fine with constructive criticism and agreed with what he said were the company’s best practices regarding code, but I get the sense this guy is merciless, and aggressively tearing people down doesn’t seem like the best way to instill values). It was another red flag that I didn’t interview with any other engineers, just him and HR. The pay offer ultimately just wasn’t competitive enough considering companies with an actual work life balance offer more compensation. If you want serving Gilfoyle to be your entire life, then go ahead and apply.