Pros
I've worked at a nightmare startup and also a big, safe tech company, and Braze feels like middle ground, in a good way. It's like a tech startup in that everyone is still figuring certain things out (process or product related), but everything you do has a lot of oversight, so you're rarely making a misstep or losing alone throughout the sales process. For this current macroeconomic environment, Braze is doing well and the revenue we're driving is real. I've worked places where forecasting is literally reps pontificating and making up numbers or creating opportunities from nonexistent "whitespace," and that's not the case at Braze, thank god. Our product does really stack up. It's not perfect, but it does what we say it will do and leadership isn't forcing us to sell it as something it isn't or plopping half-baked features on our plates to go shove down customers' throats. There are several products to sell customers, so a single point of failure isn't possible. Again, the product(s) and every GTM motion around them are not perfect, but I trust Braze's GTM strategy at-large by now. If a product leaves something to be desired, we all talk about it and there's no expectation to sell it if it's not a fit. I can't believe I have to write that as a pro but I've worked at places where that's not the case. I personally am grateful to be surrounded by a sales team and sales leaders who are normal, smart, realistic, and have good intentions. Reps can't hide behind shady sales practices or get by being lazy here. It's definitely a high-performing culture, and a transparent one, and I'll take it over the alternatives. I do love that there is an office culture if you live around one, and it's optional to come in and when you do, there's always some incentive (food, drinks, a movie screening, etc.).
Cons
Lots of process. As a public company who was private in the not-so-distant past, there is a lot of admin work to make sure your deals are SOX compliant, and it's kind of a drag, and leads to reps being less fast-moving. I'm still grateful to work somewhere that has sound practices and finances in-place, don't get me wrong, but if selling outside the box is what you like, Braze probably isn't for you. Braze grew quickly and in the Enterprise at least, there are a lot of people on a prospect account or customer account team. It can be super difficult to know who does what, to make sure you're not over-extending yourself or picking up someone else's slack, or worse--that you're creating inertia within an account because no one knows who should do what so you're all looking around and not taking action. I'd way rather have more people supporting me and the sales/post-sales process than less, but it doesn't *always* make it easy, and it's definitely unique to Braze. That is ultimately a pro, not a con, but the end experience for reps is ambiguity in roles & responsibilities, which may not be what you're looking for. Comp is also pretty low compared to what I've seen in tech.