Pros
- I look forward to coming to work everyday because the environment is relaxing, I feel like I'm working with friends and the projects I'm working on are interesting and offer new challenges and opportunities to learn new things. - Mercatus cares about the culture and feel to the office. So everything is fun and relaxing, and everyone is encouraged to speak their mind and offer their opinions. The CEO is pretty cool and will often hang out with us and actually cares about everyone on a personal level. - There is a candy bar and tea station that has a large variety of teas, fruit bowls in the kitchen, ice cream in the freezer during summer, beer and whisky club on fridays, and so many other nice perks. As a Developer: - Everyone gets a laptop which can be taken home. This is great because we have the ability to work from home once to twice a week, which also allows you to work around any doctors appointments or obligations easily without needing to use a vacation day. I like using them when I'm not feeling well, but not sick enough to call in sick. ( There is no defined limit to sick days, I just like working) - When you start you get to choose what operating system and software you want to use. I prefer Macs, and they got me one of the newest models to use. I was allowed to choose any IDE or software I needed and Mercatus paid for the licenses. - Everyone gets a monitor to connect to their laptop ( keyboard and mouse as well if you prefer ), and if requested they will order a second monitor and noise cancelling headphones. - Mercatus gives us lots of opportunities to learn and expand, they paid for tickets and gave me the time off to go to three conferences even though they were close together ( FITC, FSTOCO & PHP True North ). They also constantly sponsor meetups and will pay for the ticket and often for the uber ride to go to a meetup. - I know that I will never be asked to do anything unethical or if there is something I don't think is a good idea for usability or in any way shady, I just have to speak up and I know management has my back.
Cons
The office space is getting a little crowded and sometimes gets a little loud, and can make it hard to concentrate. But Mercatus buys us some nice noise cancelling headphones to use in the office and we have the ability to work from home once to twice a week which helps.
