Pros
- Some of the smartest, most dedicated engineers I've had the pleasure of working with - Good benefits such as 100% covered medical, dental, and vision - 2 weeks PTO (3 weeks after 1 year with the company) that is pretty easy to use - Paid holidays: 6 days (including 2 for Thanksgiving), plus the week between Christmas and New Years - $150 monthly reimbursement for things like cellular service, gym membership, CalTrain passes, etc. - Products are useful and have a positive impact on the world - Great office spaces with (at least, pre-pandemic) free snacks and free lunches on some days
Cons
- Leadership does NOT care about employees and is NOT transparent. They shame and mock negative Glassdoor reviews during all-hands, and then ask that people submit positive reviews to drown out the negative ones because “it makes hiring difficult”. How about actually addressing our feedback instead, and talking about negative but reasonable reviews? - Leadership does NOT trust its employees. For example: pre-pandemic, WFH was allowed on paper but strongly discouraged as something only lazy employees do. And, despite how well WFH is going during the pandemic, leadership has so far only said that we will be expected to be back in the office full-time after the pandemic. No feedback sought from us so far, despite promises otherwise. - An inflexible, toxic work culture that starts from the top. Pre-pandemic, work-life balance was almost non-existent. Remote work has improved this, but I fear a return to the status quo post-pandemic. - Before and during the pandemic, work-life balance was highly variable depending on the team. Some teams are fine. With others, expect long hours and regular, grueling on-call weeks where issues will sometimes arise nightly. - Limited respect for boundaries, with meetings regularly booked outside of working hours and statements during all-hands that guilt-trip employees who don’t work 60+ hours per week, saying things like “if you’re expecting a 9 to 5, this is not the company for you.” - Strong power imbalance between engineering and product management. A recent Glassdoor review from a senior product manager, which I think is very representative of company culture, called engineers “slackish” and solely blamed them for failures in the product. What about overwork and unrealistic deadlines imposed by product management? What about some PMs’ lack of empathy for engineers? - Lots of senior talent leaving recently. The CEO recently criticized a Glassdoor review that called the company a "sinking ship.” Sure, strong wording, but if everything is fine, why are you desperate to keep negative reviews off of Glassdoor? - Low innovation. ML projects are off-limits to engineers and relegated to a small Data Science team. If you're an engineer, I hope you like working on web apps, APIs, and permanently temporary solutions. Often feels more like we're a consulting company writing custom scripts for our customers rather than a high-power Silicon Valley startup creating a scalable, innovative, universal product. - Compensation, benefits, and WFH/PTO are mediocre compared to other startups, especially in light of the heavy workload and inflexibility.
