Pros
You have the privilege of working alongside brilliant people on fascinating physics.
Generally speaking, the environment at the company is really welcoming. People are friendly and happy to share their knowledge. Employees will often spontaneously hang out outside of work and organize trips, drinks, etc.
Having regular interactions with academic partners is a great strategy and keeps us in the loop of recent developments. Employees are encouraged to go to conferences and share their work.
Offices are comfortable, perks are decent. There’s good work/life balance, nobody is expected to work insane hours.
Cons
HR leadership wields far too much power in the company and is hellbent on imposing draconian policies that make no sense. For example, they won’t allow any salary negotiations, and want to have a say in minute details of company life (even on how research is conducted). Attempts to challenge these policies are stonewalled and the ensuing responses from HR leadership often range from uncomfortable to downright abusive. Over the last few months, several colleagues were fired without any satisfactory explanation and were basically “disappeared”. This naturally upset a large number of people and, for some, it eroded what little confidence they had in the department.
The roadmap is overambitious and unrealistic — though to be honest that’s true of almost any company in the field. Some questionable technical decisions have contributed to our lagging behind competitors (notably Amazon).
Salaries are below average in the field. This will limit the talent we’re able to bring in and could compromise the company goals.
The bulk of the research team is hired from a handful of French academic groups. While everyone is certainly very capable and sharp, the lack of intellectual diversity is highly concerning. This also holds for our academic partnerships.