Pros
Given all the room in the world to grow and learn. They have needs from Tier 1 up to Tier 3 on the Help Desk and in project work. You are given a ton of room manage your own work; you are not micromanaged. I heard that had been an issue in the past but current management is more focused on big picture strategy and fixing longstanding process issues. As long as it gets done and customers are happy, you need not worry. Your colleagues are available to act as support in case you have any technical or procedural questions - everyone is super accessible. If you are the go-getter type who wants to advance their career, you can offer to take ownership of a certain system/platform/responsibility and will be valued for doing so. You are also appreciated just for showing up and putting in your 40 hours. Strikingly, with how thin they run the desk and split up the responsibility, everything is extremely well managed and you will not be asked to work more than your scheduled 40. Expense handling is a breeze. There is a lot of trust built into it, though you should still keep your receipts if any questions arise. Monthly employee Internet/Cellphone reimbursed. Work from home on Fridays, and they're considering adding another WFH day each week. Management seems to genuinely care about the welfare of employees and doesn't consider employees disposable, which at times can have its downsides as a couple have been observed to underperform here or there, but they were handled appropriately after their long leash ran out - at the end of the day, they know it is a business. The on-call Engineer rotation is now loosening up as we grow, and you get a HEFTY bonus for being on call for your week, which is now once every 6 to 8 weeks, but you could speak up if you wanted to do it more often (due to the bonus, no one's giving up their on call shifts unless they have a personal conflict). It is a significant bonus. Make no mistake, I have heard horror stories about how things were in the past. These seemed like a string of individuals with eccentric management styles or technical approaches that were not properly held accountable for their actions and were allowed to roam free. Now that upper management/ownership is more involved in assessing and monitoring what's working and what isn't, we really don't feel like people are an obstacle any longer. We have the right team, and now it's time to keep selectively growing it. The company's most recent report on profitability was a pleasant surprise given the flurry of hiring and management changes in early 2019. Something must have clicked. We are getting a lot of unexpected new business from customers from Illinois, to Kentucky, NY, California, and even internationally now.
Cons
Because you are the "Primary" engineer for several customers on their client list, bad luck can have you managing several issues/outages at once while colleagues go about a normal day - but as long as you speak up and escalate for assistance, you won't need to work yourself ragged. Colleagues will be pulled to help out. 90% of the time this doesn't apply and everyone tends to get an equal share of the work/projects. There is something for everyone, but if you consider yourself high level 'Tier 2' or 'Tier 3', be prepared to be OK with answering some phones and swapping out some SSDs at customer sites. Your main role is help desk, but you may work about 5 different tickets any given day, while the rest of the day is open for internal/customer projects. Certain assignments can require after hours work, but this is something no one in IT should shy away from - I can't imagine being in this field and not being okay with that to some extent. Expect to work on a night or weekend once every couple months or so. You will need to speak up for yourself if you don't see something you need documented or you don't have access to do something you need to - early employment isn't very "guided" here, and training is almost all done informally deskside with other Engineers. However, once you have your first quarterly review, you can set goals and then start setting aside time to work on those goals if the align with the company's objectives.