Genuinely dishonest leadership. Weird, disturbing management culture.
Pros
Good location. Nice people. Start-up vibe. If you are straight out of college and single, the long hours might teach you some important lessons. Good place to network. If you can play by the rules, you'll do well. This is a ground-floor operation with a lot of potential. You can really make an impact here and if the company does well, you may do really well too.
Cons
This place has a lot of bad attributes, but you can survive here if you know about them and act accordingly: - Inflexibility with hours: Management watches hours like a hawk, will try to get you to work much longer than advertised. You'll be on the short list if you are late. This is a butts-in-seats place. - Micro-management: You will be micro managed. Ever wanted a CEO to proof read your work for grammar? Would you like three layers of management to give you inconsistent feedback? Expect it, and be OK with it. - Only one opinion counts: The CEO is god. He will want to influence your work. He will ask you for your opinions. He will not agree with them, or he will say he agrees and then tell you to do what he wanted anyway. If you want to work at this place, just do what the CEO says. If you have a manager between you and the CEO, skip your manager and ask the CEO what to do. Your manager is just going to repeat what the CEO has told them, anyway. And if you are really unlucky, your manager will give you opinions that are not shared by the CEO, in which case you'll be re-doing your work as soon as the CEO reviews it. And he will review it. All of it. This goes for the lowest people in the company. No matter where you are on the ladder, your work is going to be reviewed by the very top. - Disagreement is not supported: Be a Yes-man. This is extremely important. I don't mean you should just say yes all the time. It's actually really important that you don't -look- like a yes man. Push back a little so that you look opinionated and sharp. But in the end, always decide that your boss was right. You don't need the glory of being right. What you need is your boss to approve of you. - Not People-Focused: Do not trust that management has your best at heart. This is a startup. They have limited cash. You are an expenditure and they want value for your salary. There is no coasting here, which is a good thing. But, the bad part is that there is also no value around honesty or trust when it come to employees. You are not a person, you are a resource. This is just honest truth. Work hard, you'll be ok. But don't think management is your friend, even if they act friendly. - Ethics problems: Promises are not kept. Get it in writing. Always. - Standard startup compensation tricks: Remember that stock options pre-stock are essentially imaginary. The investors can dilute any future stock as much as they want, and they can play games with the class of stock. Promised 1000 shares? Meaningless. Don't bet on the options. Bet on your paycheck. If the company is acquired pre-IPO, you're not getting any shares anyway.
