Pros
The Austin team is close-knit and full of engineers who enjoy programming for programming's sake - not a thing typical of the game industry. It's a great group of people to spend 5+ out of 7 days a week with. Work/life balance is good. Project management is well-run and looking out for the human side of things as well as project timelines. Processes are in place to both generate achievable time estimates and stick to them within core hours. Working in slot / casino games may sound a bit dry or uninteresting, but there's a surprising amount of complexity lurking under the surface if you're willing to dive, even more so if you have a love for math. The domain has some interesting and unique challenges, enough that there always feels like there's some aspect of the codebase you can improve or innovate in. Benefits are fairly standard, if unremarkable - one standout is that health / dental / vision coverage for the employee and dependents is 100% covered at no employee cost. The office has a fairly generous budget for employee-driven activities, which so far has included things like board game nights, movie outings, crafting, and even a jam band. Seasonal and monthly birthday celebrations with lots of great food are common. Financial numbers are openly presented and discussed in regular company meetings alongside clear company plans that are contextualized with the market at large, and it's been almost universally good news in my years here. As an independent operator that is competitive with much larger Vegas-gaming-owned properties, the company is in a unique market position with room to grow even further. Overall, I just really can't imagine working anywhere else right now.
Cons
1 - At times it seems that management doesn't understand what we do or why it's critical to the business - the budget often accounts for the highly-visible expected feature cadence and innovations, but not for the less-glamorous work a competent engineering organization must undertake in order to maintain the long-term health and reliability of the 24/7 live game service. The visible products of the office are recognized and celebrated, but nobody throws a big launch party when you upgrade your Couchbase server. (Or at least, I'm guessing they don't. Hopefully we'll eventually find out.) 2 - IT / Infrastructure team is careful, deliberate, and change-resistant - all strengths when applied to the goal of maintaining game service uptime and stability, but major weaknesses when it comes to keeping software / tools updated or testing / deploying modern technology. (To be fair, I am MUCH happier with this than the "move fast, break things" mindset that has taken over so many companies.) 3 - "Unlimited" PTO feels more to the company's benefit than any employee's. Most people in Austin have to be persuaded to take PTO, and they probably don't take nearly as much as they would were they given a fixed-size yearly PTO bank.
