Pros
Like most places, the people make it. I miss a lot of people from Notch, from both working together and complaining together.
My experience was of a company that (when things were going well) had a positive vibe and lots of camaraderie, with trust placed in colleagues and a lot of autonomy to get stuff done. I think there's a combination of elements which will be hard to find elsewhere.
If you're up to it, there are generally a lot of different projects that you can learn from or get involved with.
Notch's clients are a mixture of large established companies and small startups, all in specialised industries. If you enjoy getting into the nitty gritty and marketing more technical services and products, it's a good place to be.
Cons
Senior management are sometimes too closed off and opaque. Projects and changes will appear without consultation, adequate explanation or training. Notch's own branding and website was handled poorly, and not at all like how we would do it for our own clients.
HR and line management processes were not well established. I line managed someone who repeatedly complained about me. I know that I had areas to improve but, on reflection, I think that many of her complaints could have been dealt with through a quick chat rather than an HR process. I found it increasingly difficult to decipher whether my manager expected me to be clear, consistent and firm or to seek approval and consent for every interaction. Whilst these complaints were being dealt with I felt unsupported and 'presumed guilty'. I repeatedly asked for training and support, but did not receive any.
There have been hiccups with hiring - at one point we had a string of new hires who had poor experience and/or were a bad cultural fit. Getting a more robust interview process sorted, and being more ready to say goodbye to people who weren't working well, could help.
Process and Time tracking software - in an agency it's pretty much essential. During the three years I was at Notch, we used 3 different systems, each of which was 'relaunched' at least once. The latest was the least user-friendly, incredibly ugly, took a year to choose and set up and then almost immediately had to have loads of things changed about it. This was all begun before Notch had established the way that we manage projects, R&R and other key stuff. Sorting out that would have lead to a much easier time finding the software and setting it up. Instead we did a bad job that was rushed and changed a lot of processes all at the same time.
I was made redundant, although a lot of that can be put down to market conditions. It was still a shock, as business had been good at Notch for a while. We had been told a few times that there was enough money to keep going for several months, even if we lost all of our clients.