Great people and mission, but very few career growth opportunities
Pros
Working at Element really brings a sense of purpose to my work. The company has great overall values and a mission that makes me feel my work has a positive impact on the world I live in. Working in the open is super rewarding (once past the sometimes intimidating first impression) and allows me to interact with a very rich community that constantly challenges us and keeps us accountable. The company is also home to a very diversified crowd of amazing, inspiring and super talented people, which I take real pride in working with, including quite a few that I now consider good friends.
Cons
Some aspects of the company culture didn't really scale well from the time it was a 15 person startup. For example, credit and praise is still attributed by name (rather than by team) by upper management, which very often means people get left out despite playing a very active role in the development of a high-value project. Career and technical growth in the company is also quite limited after some time in the company: staffing for new projects is usually done by hiring new people (as opposed to finding interested existing employees), or by upper management bypassing existing pipelines to give such projects to historical employees that the CTO is more used to working with (making fewer growth opportunities for newer employees who would benefit from such pipelines). As a result, it's not uncommon to feel stuck in a position where the work (or the work environment) is not fulfilling, not aligned where the employee's personal interests and not offering much growth opportunities, without any room for course correction (even after discussing the situation with management). There's also no opportunity for training, which makes career growth even more difficult.
