It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Pros
Talented pool of employees. Cross departmental collaboration. Lots of opportunities to wear multiple hats as long as you show a willingness and ability to learn. Onsite cafeteria, gym, and rec room (billiard table, Wii gaming console, table tennis). Free coffee. Onsite wellness checks. Covered parking.
Cons
No formal training. A lot of churn pertaining to work assignments and employees. Limited documentation, most of the knowledge base manifests as tribal knowledge requiring you to hunt down the right people in order to fulfill inquiries related to the current project. Heavy workloads so most employees don't have the bandwidth to help answer questions. Limited resources means employees with the ability to work multiple roles and/or figure things out get over-worked while others are hyper-focused on singular tasks and narrow skill sets. Pay and compensation slightly below average for mid-level engineering/technical employees. Multiple job titles/columns ensures ample confusion when trying to compare pay/compensation rate to the national average. Slow to react to market trends. Cuts to R&D really hurt future growth potential and the ability to expand the product line. Advancement opportunities are very slow.
