Fun and Rewarding - Lead Software Developer Spellbook Employee Review

You get a paycheque, but other than that, pretty much nothing.

This place has no real management, and nobody cares about or even sees your contributions. There are effectively no review cycles. There are two founding engineers with inflated egos who claim all the authority to tell people what to do and randomly take over or close other people’s PRs. They brought in some guy, presumably to fix some of the above, but his only apparent interest is replacing the workforce with his own people, which I’ve seen happen too many times throughout my career. This typically doesn’t end well. The tech stack is extremely trivial and boring. There aren’t any interesting projects; it’s all just shoveling data around and calling LLMs. Using an async task processor is about as complex as things get, and only a privileged few are even allowed to touch that without offending egos. Talking to product pretty much felt like interacting with a 14-year-old. In summary: one big kindergarten.

> Interesting product and customer base - lots of opportunity to learn! > Company trajectory is overwhelmingly positive, with no signs of slowing down. > The company and product vision is clear and easy to get behind. You can really see where we intend to be years from now. > People here clearly care about the product and customers. Developers regularly seek customer feedback, sales works closely with product, and a great deal of care goes into the user experience. > A Canadian company with Canadian culture. Friendly, open, smart, understanding, compassionate, humble. > Work/life balance is strongly encouraged across the org. Definitely a family-friendly company. > Wages, benefits and perks are very fair. > A flat org, where you're only a few steps removed from the SLT at all times. > Communication is transparent and encouraged for all roles and levels. It's always clear what our goals are, who's building what, and why. > Perhaps cliche - very talented people work (and stay) here. > Inviting and encouraging company culture, where talent is prioritized over background. People here come from all over tech, with a variety of experiences, ideas and opinions that contribute to a wonderfully productive environment. > There is a healthy respect for our competitors and their products. > Able to work with and try new tools and the latest tech.

Still a growing start-up, which means: > Processes are in flux as we adapt to our growth. > We move incredibly fast, try new things and make mistakes. > Roles are not fully fleshed out - those aiming to stick to a strict role and set of responsibilities will have trouble adapting. > Pivots are fairly common as we react to a rapidly evolving market.