Pros
Remote-first since 2015, Essentia is a great place to work in what is otherwise a challenging and rocky fin-tech space.
The executive team are all 40+ and have had significant careers before Essentia, so they are both motivated and respect a work-life balance. Clare is a capable and empathetic leader who takes time to listen - very hands on and not out of touch. Since they are still around 50 employees, everyone they hire is super smart and also pretty empathetic, no jerks.
The company is on good footing and having worked there for 3 years, there are certainly opportunities for growing your responsibilities and suggesting, starting and owning new projects. I was able to point out a big area of process improvement and over 3 years this grew to be a huge part of the sales and marketing business.
Cons
initial compensation is a bit lower than one might expect but they are willing to give raises. this won't have the extremely fast feel of a start-up, because they are more in a scale-up, and a longer-term business with longer sales cycles. I saw the latter as a positive.