A decent work experience that was hindered by excess management and questionable employment practices.
Pros
Interesting products to work on, a start up environment that can be exciting, free drinks, decent employee events, above average pay, and a good location in Austin. There seem to have been a lot of operational changes since I left the company, and that might have resolved a lot of the cons below.
Cons
First off, it was a fairly common belief that there was far too much management. I've worked at companies with two to three times the employees with less upper management. There were a ton of VPs, Senior VPS, Directors, and so on. It was straight out of office space. Worse yet, when they had financial problems, they had round after round of layoffs where they let go of essential employees, but never seemed to lay off any of the excess management. I watched them hire what should have been wage workers as independent contractors, and when employees brought this up they were indirectly warned that they could be let go for any reason. This meant no insurance, no unemployment when they were laid off, and owing double what they should have in taxes. I still know people who have paid hundreds of dollars in CPA fees, and are still trying to get this worked out with the IRS. When they did convert contractors they paid them way less than they were making before, and told them that they had to accept the offer or lose their job in the next three months. Then many of those employees ended up getting laid off within that time anyways. Then, part of the layoff package was that you got to keep your tablet and accessories (Keyboard, docking station, etc), but many people didn't get all of it and never did. Had they simply done right by their employees this would be a job I would recommend to anyone who was interested.
