The domain of work and technologies used were interesting. The other developers were talented and fun to work with.
I learned a lot about how not to run a web development team, and am a much better developer/team member now because of it.
Cons
Poor Project Management practices put an unnecessary burden on junior developers who were straight out of school.
Absence of required code reviews for junior developers fostered a difficult to maintain web application.
Low pay and no benefits.
Hazel Analytics Response
3y
We’re sorry to hear that you didn’t have the best experience early in the company's evolution. As a self-funded company, we started off lean with a very small part-time team. Over the years, we have consistently matured our team and processes in line with our growth and success as a company. For example, all full-time team members receive generous benefits, which we include in our job descriptions and are also listed on Glassdoor. On the product development side, we have been using a formal agile approach, including a well-defined code review process, for the past several years.
The Hazel team is an aligned one. Aligned with each other in terms of our objectives as a company (i.e. great transparency and communicative leadership) and aligned in our view towards what it generally means to work on a cohesive team (frequent communication and collaboration, respect for heads-down time, relentless willingness to help each other, etc.) This really makes a difference. We have compact and strong teams of brilliant thinkers who bring individual perspectives to the challenges we work on. A portion of my growth has come from experience solving the problems themselves, but a much greater portion has come just from osmosis, simply by being surrounded by smart people. I can truly only speak for myself, but I think this respect is mutual across the team. That's another thing I think we're very aligned on. I think these are some of the main factors that make us such a powerful unit.
Cons
As our teams are still growing, there can sometimes be unavoidable decisions when it comes to how we spend our limited time and resources. But luckily, the systems we have in place encourage these decisions to be made together, so it's more of a temporary limiting factor than it is a "con."
Everyone is valued. Many companies state how important their teams are, but Hazel makes a deliberate effort in creating a positive, respectful culture, where everyone is valued. Individuals matter, because individuals make up the company. Whether a new associate or the CEO, Hazel values their people.
Remote (WFH) is a great option for work-life balance and for attracting great talent outside of Seattle where the company is based.
Principled mission that impacts public health, "Our mission is to improve public health through data-driven technology that effectively informs and connects food service operators, consumers, regulators, and industry providers to drive action".
Privately held.
Cons
Being a smaller company, there are fewer well defined career growth opportunities internally.