Pros
General: Learned and grew a lot. Met a lot of exceptionally smart people that made the challenging days worth it. - Vision: During the early days, the management had a bright (and realistic) vision of how to build a good payment infrastructure for Southeast Asia. They wanted to cover as many payment methods and most (if not all) customer segments. It was great until they wanted to expand exponentially to different countries and add more products. - Senior Management: They are approachable - you can just talk to them casually and they would talk to you like a human being. Also, I appreciate that we had AMA sessions before... - Work/Life Balance: (1) Proud of the work-from-anywhere policy for the last x years. (2) People encourage you to take care of yourself and your family. (Spoiler alert: They're changing it now). - Career Trajectory: Doesn't exist. - Diversity & Inclusion: They would see you based on your skill and not your age and gender - which I really love in this company!
Cons
General: Costed me my mental health. - Vision: They wanted to expand exponentially to different countries and add more products without checking if the foundations could handle it. (See: A building without a strong foundation can be swayed easily by winds and an earthquake has enough power to bring it crumbling down.) People tell them that foundations are not stable enough because of the hacky ways done during the startup days (which is understandable). They wouldn't listen to it until it was "flagged" by someone important to them. - Senior Management: (1) Senior management appears to show favoritism. How? If you're not aligned with them, your performance may not be recognized or valued, regardless of your competence. If you're not part of the inner circle, you need to work harder to prove your worth. (See: most influential PH lead) (2) Even if I appreciate the AMAs, tbh, people stopped asking about AMAs because the answers are templated. (Context: Initially, they were transparent, but recently, there seems to have been a shift leading to a lack of openness.) (3) There is a manager who gaslights PMs. I realized this after leaving Xendit when other PMs under this manager too told me then that they had the same treatment (saying we're not doing our best, our ideas are not good enough, etc). I would somehow be OK if he is a capable PM or at least an empathetic human - but nope! (Advice for management: Evaluate whether your existing employees are truly delivering results or if they excel only in verbal communication.) - Work/Life Balance: You are encouraged to work harder. Unpopular opinion, it's somehow ok for me if it actually gives you job security but learned that it is not sufficient to maintain employment. - Career Trajectory: (1) There isn't a clearly defined path for product management. (2) They can silently demote you, and interestingly, when you eventually discover it, they would say "We're about to announce it" but they never actually did. - Pay: There is a great disparity on salary :) Bonus: The CEO is a devout God-believer. But his acts have been straying away from his beliefs since he’s not being honest nor respectful. He is practicing deceit and being disrespectful instead. He is getting closer and closer to Mammon.