Pros
The company was a bad fit for me, and I was a bad fit for it. The biggest reason is that I’m very outgoing and enthusiastic, and do not do well stuck behind a desk at home with limited interaction with humans (all work is remote). I found it difficult to keep in conversation with supervisors who often had very unrealistic expectations of human ability. There are many reasons why I would’ve stayed in this position if I could’ve. Most of the projects are very interesting and I enjoyed them, and I loved working with many of the people. If these projects were at a different company, with different leadership, I would’ve absolutely loved this job.
Cons
There are some very serious drawbacks to this company. The largest problem is with the owner of the company. While he is decent at business, he is arrogant and is really terrible to many on his staff, especially women. These problems are measurable – women are promoted slower and have lower bonuses than men, and opportunities for client facing work are withheld from women. Men are treated with much more respect than women are – they are much more easily forgiven for mistakes. Because the owner of the company treats some people so poorly and has clear favorites, this sends a signal to other people in positions of power to also treat people disrespectfully in an effort to drive them out. The rampant sexism and how that plays out is the worst flaw of this company. The second worst flaw of this company is that they set new hires up for failure. There is no investment in new hires, which means there is no real training, and you can quickly find yourself on the receiving end of an angry phone call within your first week on the job simply because you don’t have an updated version of Microsoft Excel. This also means that when people are promoted through the ranks they are not trained to adequately manage people, which is a totally different discipline than the science, resulting in an incredibly burned out, upset staff who legitimately feel disrespected. The third worst flaw of this company is that the gossip engine is alive and well. This need to bash people behind their backs is really demoralizing. You’re not talking about ways to improve people’s performance and find training opportunities for them, you’re talking crap about them as people. Not only is that exceedingly immature, it’s terrible for business. While I was there, there were an average of about 30 people on staff, and 9 were fired, and 8 quit, for over a 50% turnover while I was there. The salary for people with advanced training (PhD) is $35/hour. There are no benefits, and if the company is not doing well financially, it will affect your bonus, and you will not work.