Pros
- Lots of people who are perfectly easy to get along with. - Flat company structure means that you're rarely dealing with any type of middle-management. - The product development teams are a pretty lively bunch (but elsewhere the days are pretty dull and grim). - The products themselves are quite good. - They have a very low tolerance for inappropriate behaviour/actions and have a decent track record of dealing with those types of situations well; not perfect, but this is at least a place that won't tolerate abuse - As long as I've been there, it's been a very inclusive work environment - You're able to periodically work from home, but regular use will get concerns raised to you by management. - Most managers are reasonably open to some lightly flexible working hours, given enough cause.
Cons
- Sales have, for years, far outpaced development output capabilities and have cultivated resentment to sales and upper management; the product development teams are constantly put in a near-unwinnable position trying to deliver various requirements with competing priorities at once due to promises made to clients. - Horizontal career movement is not-uncommon, but opportunities for vertical growth are virtually non-existent, which is especially laughable as: - They just keep on hiring more and more and more VP-level positions, and all but one of them has been from outside the company; it's really insulting when you have to pull-teeth to get a decent raise, and yet they keep top-loading high-paying VP-level positions (a handful of whom travel every week and need to be flown and housed at a cost to the company). A number of the new VPs are just overlapping job responsibilities with other VPs, so it seems especially laughable. - There's a sad lack of women in VP positions - Upper management has been doing a really heavy, and cringe-inducing, top-down "culture" push; paying lip service to building a great culture, being accessible, and talking about being "great innovators" while they continue to ignore the terrible morale that has developed in the company, and they are taking no initiatives to actually foster innovation, creativity, or personal well-being, something that most noteworthy tech companies actively *enable* their employees to do. - Inter-departmental communication & collaboration has been improving greatly, but can still often be difficult to get things done quickly - There is a constant battle of "needing to take the time to do things correctly" and "just getting it done", leading to really inconsistent results and lots of stress - While there are lots of efforts to establish straightforward and standardized processes, different departments have differing expectations and pressures that can hinder this greatly - Depending on the department, it can be difficult or impossible to get support for employees to take advantage of external training
