A bunch of great people solving hard problems together.
Pros
I look back on the stuff we built at Drawboard with a sense of pride and accomplishment. We overcame all sorts of troubles because we were all in it together as a team. Alistair (CEO) has a vision, he is driven and is passionate about the problems his company is trying to solve. Rowan (Product Owner) lived through those problems, so he came with an understanding and empathy for our users that I still find unmatched. At the time we had an up-hill battle of challenging technical problems, that as a team, we pushed through together. There was a lot of autonomy in what I focused on, that being said Al and Rowans deep understanding of the problem and our users acted as a guiding light, giving us the tools and trust we needed to make technical decisions. We didn't have many meetings, instead there were large amounts of white-boarding sessions and deep discussions on the risks of difference choices. Near the end of my time at Drawboard, I worked remote from another country and vastly different timezone for almost two months.
Cons
I could see the autonomy being hard for some people. Some people just like to know exactly what they need to do, the Drawboard I knew would probably be really frustrating for people like that. The high levels of trust also meant high levels of responsibility, times spent working were full and challenging, some people may have trouble finding that right balance. At least while I was there, there wasn't much in the way of learning or mentoring, you were pretty much required to be good and have a pretty good idea of what you were doing before you started. I learned heaps from the amazing people I worked with, as we solved hard things together, but that being said, there was no hand-holding for your responsibilities, the small team meant that it was on you to figure our your part yourself. Not because of lack of empathy, there just wasn't anyone else above you that already knew the answers. Might be different now though, I could see a junior growing substantially under the guidance of some of the people I worked closely with given the chance.
