Pros
* Working at BestPrice was like being part of the Phaistos family. The senior managers always treated me with respect and as a colleague. * The management applied enough pressure to keep us focused on the right things, but they were all very forward thinking, understanding and gave guidance when needed. * When I joined I had limited experience, however I was given plenty of time to learn and evolve. The senior system administrator was also very patient with me watching over his shoulder, explaining to me when necessary and patching up when I broke things. I owe him a lot for helping me grow into the engineer I am now. * With the experience I amassed working here I was offered a job in a major tech company. * There was no strict time pressure on delivering anything, as long as we were working towards the right goals and there was incremental improvement. * We were given freedom to choose any technology and any tool to get the job done. We got to pick our favourite language, software stacks and experimentation was allowed. * We got to play with all the latest and greatest. If there was a blog post about some new service, api or tool, we would check it out and see if it fit. * From a diversity perspective there was a good percentage of female engineers. * The offices are located in the Science and Technology Park of Crete (STEP-C), located on the outskirts of the city, accessible via bus, has ample parking space, cafeteria and facilities.
Cons
* Wages were unsatisfactory. * There was no promotion process to speak of, or any way or level to climb. This severely hurt in the retention of senior and skilled engineers. * The two core developers and owners have been in these positions for many years, are exceptionally skilled and have built almost everything themselves. Combined with the lack of other senior engineers this has caused a huge skill gap. When new developers are hired it is hard for them not to feel like imposters. * There is no focus on junior / intern engineers to help them grow and evolve the company in the long term. * Meetings were not very frequent, but they would tend to overrun, sometimes exceeding office hours.