Pros
- The managers are fantastic. They truly care about your personal growth and you becoming the best contributor you can possibly be. - The projects are interesting and the clients are amazing. Think James Bond type gadgets. You learn a ton and work on projects that are insanely cool. - I've found the co-workers to be incredibly smart. Think MIT PhD or DARPA PM smart. People from other divisions are eager to trade best practices. - I don't have any experience with upper management, but it does seem that they take criticism seriously. I know previous posts have discussed issues with DNI and improving social culture, and the company has taken steps to address both of these issues. - The benefits are quite good. I'm coming from Silicon Valley, so I'm spoiled, but they had surprisingly good health-care, dental, life, tuition reimbursement, PTO, etc. - Work for my team is quite flexible. As long as you finish your work, no one cares when you work, which is something I appreciate as a person with weird working hour preferences.
Cons
- The company is growing quickly and I think they're still working out what exactly they want to become. They want to take some of their R&D projects to production, and I think they have the people to do it, but they are not as experienced. - If you're good enough to get in here, you're properly good enough to get into FAANG. This company had lower offers than my offers in Silicon Valley, and that is likely because the company is bootstrapped from the ground up. The fact that I still took this offer is an indication of how much I enjoyed talking to people here. - Related to the previous topic, because the company is bootstrapped, it is bound by contract amounts awarded. This means that sometimes, it is not able to deliver contracts and subsequently may not make it to the next stage. The financial situation of the company is still great, though.