Pros
There is a strong level of autonomy. My manager was great. I felt supported and trusted to take on various projects within the company. There are a lot of smart and kind people at the company. They have unlimited PTO for salaried employees. It's a fast past company, and while I was there, I saw a decent amount of promotions, so there is room for growth. Felt they were competitive with compensation. There is a level of transparency as there are no private slack channels, and there is a leadership Slack channel with the C-suites. I think they are doing well financially, it's nice to see the hard work lead to actual company success.
Cons
Landing is Bill Smith's second start-up. He sold his last company for $500M to Target. This is quite a reputation, especially in Birmingham. The issue is that many of the employees either put him on a pedestal or are apprehensive to disagree. When you have that level of success, it makes it challenging for people to push their ideas through and disagree with that direction. Most of this comes from the CEO and COO, which keeps a lot of people on their toes. The leadership Slack channel I mentioned above, is mainly used by the CEO and COO inquiring about specific issues or data that they need and pretty much putting specific employees on blast. Although it has been reiterated that employees don't need to respond immediately, I don't know anyone at any company that would feel okay leaving the CEO waiting for an answer. In addition, sometimes the tone by both of them can be condescending. The most alarming company decision was to bring everyone back in the office in both the Birmingham and SF offices during COVID. Birmingham has been back in the office since the summer of 2020, and SF in early March 2021 before the local government said it was okay. I think there is a level of autonomy allowed with SF employees, but there are employees in Birmingham who worry about not going into the office for the fear of possibly getting terminated. I don't think there is a strong sense of culture at Landing. I don't think I ever heard any mission statement or company principles. A lot of times these can be corny, but if done well, it can help shape the culture and the company. Because there was nothing to point to, it's hard to define what the company culture should strive to be. There needs to be more emphasis placed on team building. Some of the workforce is in other offices, and there was no emphasis placed by leadership to create an environment of inclusivity for those not in Birmingham. It is also not a diverse company. Although I do think they have made improvements, the company is still majority caucasian. Asians make up the next largest group but are mainly only in finance and engineering roles. For a period of time at the company, there wasn't a single salaried black employee. Work-life balance is quasi non-existent. Although there is preaching of taking time off work, all of the teams run super lean. If one person goes out of office, it really puts a lot of burden on other team members. The CEO indicated that there would be a "slow period" to allow for this, but it really didn't come to fruition. Anyone that has to work with hosts really has to be "on" all the time. There are installs and other jobs happening at all hours all through the week and weekend. As some host experience manager doesn't have enough context to help them, not being responsive can be a detriment to your success. The vast majority of the operations are run on Slack, which is actually wild. There are many 50 comment threads on Slack in regards to various issues. I don't think Slack was built to run a company on it.
