Pros
The engineering talent at the ground level is top-notch - we're talking serious professionals who know their stuff. The NYC office? Yeah, it's fancy, but it's like a ghost town since nobody shows up anymore. Gotta give credit where it's due - the CEO's heart is in the right place, genuinely passionate about the mission, which is actually pretty noble. The mission-driven work is meaningful, and if you're hungry for cross-functional experience, there's plenty of opportunity to sink your teeth into different areas. Plus, the company's got some serious backing from heavy hitters in both private and public sectors.
Cons
Alright, now for the juicy stuff. The engineering department went to absolute hell when the Boston crew swooped in like vultures, pushing out competent managers and replacing them with yes-men who couldn't manage to build their way out of a paper bag. The VPs? Let's just say the talent pool gets real shallow at that level. Management pulled some serious shenanigans during COVID, inflating salaries to keep people from jumping ship, only to later kick them to the curb to balance the books. Talk about a snake move. Engineering managers are working with budgets that wouldn't cover a kid's lemonade stand, and core improvements? Good luck getting those approved. They've got the audacity to expect miracles while running core critical departments like Support, IT, and Security on skeleton crews. And don't get me started on dumping all the project management work onto engineers after laying off the entire PM team. Here's a laugh - they love throwing stock options at you like confetti, acting like you've won the lottery when there's no exit strategy in sight. The shares are about as valuable as Monopoly money at this point. And hey, nothing says "Happy Holidays" like their annual January-February layoff tradition - marking your calendar yet? The management situation is a joke - zero mentorship because nobody up there has the chops to actually teach anything. You've got these failing-upward types who wreck one department, get promoted, and then spread their incompetence like a virus while taking credit for the cleanup work done by others. Performance reviews? Picture a bunch of clueless executives sitting around a table, fighting against raises like they're defending their last dollar. The company's been spinning its wheels for two years, with a "strategy" that changes more often than I change my socks.