Pros
- They give you money in exchange for your work. Depending on your leverage at hire time this might even be a decent salary. - They offer equity (although it's worthless) - Opportunity to put out massive technical fires that could melt the permafrost of a Siberian winter (these do look good on a resume) - Some cutting edge tech stacks, and actually quite a few brilliant technical leaders - A good chance to learn what it's like working in a medium-large engineering org, a want to be micro-tech company.
Cons
Before the merger and tech market downturn in '22 this was actually a decent place to work. But now I can't in good conscience recommend this job to anyone but the most desperate people. If you have the choice just don't work here, consider the misery factor a solid 40% depreciation on your offer salary (again the equity is worthless). I listened to leadership attempt to placate us over and over again about how they were "listening to our concerns" regarding expectations all while they cultivated an environment of fear and insecurity as well as intense competition by constantly and stealthily laying off engineers and re-orging every year after attrition became so bad on teams they could no longer function. If you do work here and get even a whiff of disapproval start looking for another job as you'll be the next fall guy guaranteed. I heard rumors and saw evidence of multiple people who went through mental health crises due to the stress and expectations. The working environment is a political shark tank and i'd even go so far as to call it radioactive. The strong people eventually leave, the ones that stay behind, well I fear for their mental health. I knew I had to go after watching every person I actually trusted at the company leave over multiple years (these also happened to be some of the most competent and essential people). You'll figure out pretty quick that the rubber of the mission barely meets the road due to profitability constraints and under-resourcing. The company does provide a real product and you do "help" real people but I'm not convinced in any magnitude that makes a difference.
