Pros
* If you are junior Software Engineer still trying figure out software then this is the place to be to grow for two years. Just make sure you are in Labs. * If you take initiative, you will get promoted fast minimum 10% raises. However, if you are already getting underpaid, then it is actually not that much. This is one of the ways they manipulate you. * If you want to take things nice and easy, this is the place to be. As long as you show you are doing some work and contributing a little, they won't let you go. They are literally dying for talent. When I left, they had a negative hiring rate. They were losing more people than they were hiring.
Cons
* Mid-level and Senior Engineers will get overworked if you actually try. * Technical Strategy for leadership has no idea what they are doing. As a mid-level engineer I had to revamp their whole technical strategy. This is where all the good people did and then they left. * You will get underpaid. There is no merit based salary bumps without being forceful about it. You have to bring in an offer letter to get the raise you want. I had to do this twice to get the appropriate salary adjustments. Second time I called it quits because it felt dirty. * Business is fine with quick and dirty approach and when it breaks or you can't deliver features it will always be software fault. This is true for most companies. * Leadership is all talk and no actual thought. <- Learn this one from my current company. I actually really believed my leadership was talented, but in the end they are average leaders and expert manipulators. * CEO is there for the stock price not for you. I left before the company went private so things maybe different. * Middle management literally has no support from their leaders, and Leaders are literally just trying to make their revenue numbers. * Product is literally a guessing game. It is just somebody throwing something at a dart board. Software team holds an inception, and it turns out nobody needs to use it. I literally predicted what product needed. The features that customers want is literally staring at their face and product/architecture will circumvent it, because it will cannibalize their other revenue streams, they want to keep prices high for higher revenue so they can kill the idea to protect other interest, or it is too hard to solve. * Business side is very political and hard to deal with (This is fairly common amongst companies) * The former CIO ran a very competitive leadership team. They could have better synergy and helped each other out for overall better tech, but they instead they kept to themselves. They are a few leaders who actually did this and saw tremendous success, but in the end there was no backing from Product or the CIO.