Impulsive management lacking ethics and respect
Pros
Great environment to learn and to grow – at least it was before the most talented people left. Amazing office located in a lively neighborhood, nice perks, and I think salaries have become decent after the management understood this is a competitive job market (in 2014). Relaxed workplace, most of the time. Don't get too relaxed though, you're being watched.
Cons
A popular joke among Wajam employees is to ask "what is our product?" anytime someone mentions the word "product". That's how bad it is. Right, what is the product? What is this business? How does the company make all this money? You won't find clear answers on Wajam's website, nor on their carefully prepared PR statements. You won't find them on Wikipedia, as Wajam's page was permanently deleted after a long edit war between honest contributors and a PR firm hired by Wajam. However, a quick Google search will likely help you understand what Wajam's "product" is. Which brings me to the second point – the company's reputation. Once, during a team outing, our guide asked what company we were working for. He said "Wajam? Really? I had to uninstall this crap from my mother's computer no later than last sunday!". And that's what you now have on your CV for the rest of your life. The top management has no intention to build a product that will help or satisfy users. The only intention is to make money, and if that requires screwing users over, they'll do it. Wajam users don't even know what Wajam is – when they finally know, they uninstall. Because there is no interesting product, motivation is low and most people underperform. This is a structural problem, which partly explains why this team cannot execute. People are not greedy enough, and you can't blame them for that, when you ask them to work on a cash cow that does not benefit to anyone except shareholders, i.e. the CEO. The messy, unstable management doesn't help executing, either. The fact that the company was only funded by its CEO has always been presented as a great advantage. It is, however, an issue per se. Because there are no outside investors, there are no real advisors and the CEO takes decisions alone, without being accountable for the consequences. Wajam underwent a rapid team expansion in 2013 and things were looking amazing at that time. However, the CEO lost his employees' trust after he impulsively decided to lay off around 10 people in 2014, pretending the financial situation forced him to take that decision. I think he did not give the team enough time to reach a decent level of productivity after such a quick growth, and so much time and energy was wasted. Lots of talented people were disgusted and left in the following months. It was a total sh*t show. As part of this massive talent loss, all senior managers working directly with the CEO also quit. It seems like they never had a chance to make their voice heard and were only allowed to execute decisions coming from the top, even though they were older and more experienced than the CEO. And finally, don't get fooled by Wajam's spin-off called SPOTR. It's basically a failed attempt at building a product – initially related to Wajam, now simply in free fall. So far they've "pivoted" (i.e. completely switched focus and tossed their work in the trash) every 6 months and it shouldn't be long before the CEO realizes it's just burning Wajam's cash and sends everyone home. And you know what, that would be one of the best decisions he would have made lately.