Pros
I’ve been at MemSQL for a few years and can confidently say we are in the best position we ever have been to be incredibly successful. The company is currently in that perfect mid-size start-up place where there is a super solid foundation but still a lot of exciting growth ahead. The market opportunity is huge, the product is impressive, customers are loving it and expanding their contracts every year, teams are still lean so the impact is high, and we are growing. I foresee exponential growth in both revenue and headcount year over year and a bright future ahead! There are few opportunities to work at startups like MemSQL. Here there is a maniacal focus on building a strong, well managed, and operationally efficient business that still maintains the innovation obsession you expect in a startup culture. We operate with a level of maturity as a startup because we are truly building an enterprise business to support other enterprise businesses. This has been especially true and valuable over the past few months navigating COVID-19, I feel grateful to work at a healthy company that is stable, financially secure, and fairly insulated from the greater economic impacts of coronavirus. Most importantly there are some of the smartest and most driven people I’ve ever worked with on the team here. Everyone is highly motivated to take this company and our technology to new heights. It’s incredibly inspiring to work with such incredible people who push themselves and those around them to constantly grow.
Cons
We’re moving really quickly and sometimes that can lead to a lot of challenges in scaling a business… One area is in communication breakdowns. Communications have improved but could still stand to be better across the organization. Second, it’s great that we are a high performance-driven company but sometimes there are unrealistic expectations and not mutual accountability from the company in setting people up for success in hitting/exceeding expectations. You have to be a very self sufficient person to succeed here.