Pros
Discounts, sometimes free beer, resume builder
Cons
REI was never an amazing employer, but was decent enough. But with COVID-19, everything is going downhill and shady decisions are being made. Barely three weeks into stores being closed, 25% of HQ employees were laid off. It appears the majority of them were women, which is interesting considering the HQ population overall is majority men. Several women on maternity leave or very pregnant were let go. The layoffs also targeted primarily individual contributors, so now there are many "teams" of a manager and a direct report. One team I heard of now has a ratio of 1.5 individual contributors to managers (9 ICs to 6 managers). Ineffectual managers were retained while very valuable and needed ICs were cut, greatly increasing workload for their colleagues. Then there's the 10% pay cut the survivors had to take. And to top it off, we all have to work remotely for the foreseeable future but the company has made it very clear that we will not be reimbursed for any expenses to purchase equipment, nor are we allowed to take anything from our office workspace. I've spent $500+ equipping my space with the bare minimum to do my job effectively.