Pros
As others have mentioned, hands-on experience is a pro; however, you have to go out of your way and speak to other departments if you want to learn anything.
All of the materials in day-to-day duties are open-source, so anyone can figure out the basics with relative ease, if you don't mind scrounging for the information within 3 different documentation platforms with incomplete/outdated articles.
Plenty of overtime opportunities because of the constant turnover and long periods of no hiring.
Once you've finished your menial work, you can try to learn more concepts if time allows (they have since removed their Udemy Business account and are shifting focus to an HR management platform, likely to steer your "growth" on their terms).
Cons
Growing in this company is like trying to climb a mountain without any limbs. There are success stories from many years ago, however, there are no real avenues for elevation in any engineering departments unless you teach yourself every aspect, work over double full-time hours, and make your work-life balance fully about Atlantic.Net. With the removal of Udemy Business as well, the options for expanding your knowledge have become funneled (likely due to a past policy allowing you to study Udemy concepts for overtime). They take entry-level literally, meaning they have hired people from all industries with varying expertise levels and provided them the same base pay just above minimum wage, with the promises that you will be able to evolve your career. You can have a master's degree and make just as much as a gas station employee, while also having to do more work.
The general policy for years had been a bi-annual review of your performance, your knowledge, and to ensure that your goals are being met, both personal and company-wise. As the company's performance dwindled and new managers/directors get promoted, there has not been a review in almost 2 years and raises are abysmal, if they are even offered (or if you provide a full analysis of your skillset to the director yourself because there's no review periods happening).
Long hours with a small team, with no real onboarding process that has been cemented and proven to work since keeping staff is not a priority. The turnover has always been high, and while the responses from whomever is speaking on the company's behalf on Glassdoor may tell you the opposite, this is not the case. If you are a slow learner, or cannot grasp the idea of your expected duties after one attempt, you are labeled as replaceable and incompetent. If you make a mistake, you are chastised for the remainder of your employment for said mistake and will be given little to no chances to redeem yourself, nor learn anything further while you wait to inevitably be replaced.
Funding and focus seems to be towards evolving technologies (AI, GPU hosting, etc.) instead of fixing and improving the infrastructure for the team as a whole. You will be seen as the bottom of the totem pole by the others on your team, and though you may be the face of the company for their highest-paying customers, they will again not treat you like you deserve any type of praise or compensation. Additionally, your "supervisors" will tell you not to speak to any other departments or complete any type of request/escalation from these other departments without their permission, regardless of how busy the day might be or how important the task is.
The alignment and communication between the management, sales, and support teams often leads to confusion, misplaced anger or frustration, missed deadlines, and crunching time for multiple people and datacenters. This then creates an environment that instills fear in those who may not be 100% sure in their actions, leading to more delays in workflow. Overall, there are more bad vibes shared throughout multiple facets of the company and a lot of blaming others as scapegoats, akin to a clique mentality. If you're not with them, you are against them and will always be seen as such.
You get 80 hours of PTO for the year. That's it. And you don't start earning that until after your 90-day "training", and then it doesn't accrue until the second quarter of the year. Basically, if you have anything you need to do besides work, you have to call out sick (30 hours for the year) or take no pay. Which is absolutely ridiculous for a small team that is overworked in a 24/7/365 environment. They will say working remotely is a privilege and give those who don't contribute as much as others this privilege.
