Pros
Truly special product and team. Great SaaS business traction and an amazing group of people to work with.
Here's a shortlist of top pros, although honestly
- Repeat co-founders: they aren't making mistakes that first-time founders routinely make, and they really invest in growing the team internally rather than always hiring in more senior leadership
- Autonomy & ownership: startups are chronically short-staffed so we're always looking to hire, but teammates are always willing to step up and gap-fill in the meantime.
- Interesting product/technical challenges: we're building new category-defining software so there are a lot of important, interesting problems to solve.
- Work-life balance: it is a startup so there is occasionally more work than a typical big company gig. However, it was a good sign to me when I first signed that both founders and many employees have young families. People respect family time and also encourage people to fully unplug on vacation.
- Great culture: we've always been remote-friendly (Canadian engineering presence) so we've invested a lot in both in-person and remote social activities. Geoguessr, cofounder-hosted trivia, Halloween costume contests, as well as coworker self-organized events happen regularly.
- Social proof: we've grown a large portion of the team through internal referrals. People really love working here and want to get their friends and former coworkers to join them!
Cons
- B2B SaaS software (especially for specific markets like sales and customer support) is not seen as sexy by engineers so it's hard to recruit outside of our networks