Pros
After a couple of summer internships, I joined MemSQL two years ago to work full-time on the engineering team. -- Top quality engineering talent. Rub shoulders with ACM / IOI champions and database industry veterans. -- Strong focus on engineering excellence, QA, and extensive testing. Learn best industry practices. -- Challenging problems in a dynamic, no-bs fast-paced environment. If you want to get catapulted into the world of distributed systems, this is the place where no one will hold you back and you can really push your problem solving and learning abilities to the limit. -- Career growth opportunities. We promote from within and strongly encourage people who step up to take on leadership positions. That said, we are really big on... -- Meritocracy. Most startups say they have that, but here really nobody cares how you dress or when you come to work. If your code is rock solid, you can have as much flexibility as you like, and you can expect that promotion. -- Fortune 500 customers with deep pockets. This is not another "startup for startups" that will die in the next bust. -- Tremendous opportunity for further business growth. We have beaten some of the leading industry giants in head-to-head comparisons by orders of magnitude (which is why these big customers keep paying us). So far we have only scratched the surface and will surely achieve explosive growth in our customer base as we scale out our sales team. -- Standard startup perks like catered lunches & dinners, snacks, FSA, gym discounts, etc. -- Great office space & location.
Cons
While MemSQL has gone a long way since 2012, it is still a startup which comes with its own set of cons. In addition, some of the "pros" above may be "cons" for some people, e.g. -- If you prefer a cushy 9-to-5 job with low demands and lots of free time, you will likely find MemSQL a bit too demanding and fast-paced. It isn't rare to see people here late at night or on weekends, especially around deadlines. -- Even though we've grown about 10x since my first internship, some processes (e.g. new hire onboarding) still feel a bit chaotic. That said, this is a great opportunity for you to leave your mark and improve them. -- I've found that some of my friends find MemSQL to be a bit too money-focused and even mercenary, as opposed to companies like Facebook and Medium which are out there to "change the world" and "money will come later". While we have yet to come up with our own brand of corporate kool-aid, our product does make a real difference for the bottom line of our customers and they are paying good money for that. If you believe in free markets, this should mean a lot.