A good place to learn and grow, but not to get promoted or IPO-rich
Pros
(See "Cons" for corresponding negatives and overall "Con"text:) * The company is small enough (and sufficiently understaffed) to be fluid. There are opportunities to stretch out, gain or deepen skills, experiment, make mistakes (within reason), be forgiven, learn, and move on. * These growth opportunities are probably the best thing about working here. And I really mean self-directed learning – or seeking out mentors – to build intrinsic capabilities. There's almost no formal training or performance support available. There's also a poor pipeline from engineering into management, or from eng. mgmt. into product mgmt. So don't come here for formal promotions. * Festive atmosphere, with lots of themed events, celebrations, and good food and drink. You'll feel like coming to work. * Culture of respect and acknowledgment, with little competition or backbiting. You'll feel appreciated. * Relatively generous compensation and benefits. * Workforce defies some tech-industry stereotypes. Basically no one from this office goes to Burning Man. * For a PCI-compliant company, work environment is reasonably permissive and not locked-down. Security training and procedures are taken seriously, but you're free to choose your own software tools, browser, etc. * Core business is sufficiently robust that investors forgive the company's ongoing mistakes and direction changes, and keep investing. BigCommerce has a small slice of a rapidly growing market, hence the forgiveness.
Cons
Here's the context for both pro's and con's: Small (60-person), engineering-focused satellite office of a 400-person e-commerce host that was founded in Australia, and is now HQ'ed in Austin, TX. Three C-level execs are in S.F., and some product and engineering decisions are made here. But the top execs, along with several vital functions (sales, support, education, finance, etc.), are in Austin. So big decisions (pricing, staffing) tend to be made in Austin. The actual con's: * Most product and engineering effort goes into feature-chasing BigCommerce's dominant competitors (Shopify, Magento, Demandware, WooCommerce, Oracle), with fewer resources. There's little support for doing much that's truly innovative. Don't come here to innovate. * Top execs' expertise is being top execs/suits at other tech companies. Noticeably less focus on intrinsic product quality and usability than at companies led by developers/engineers. * Management's overwhelming focus is someday going public. But given the lack of innovation, getting acquired seems much more likely. So, place more stock in your learning and growth here than in your nominal stock grants. Engineers tend to get hired away after 2 years, when 50% of their stock vests. * Frequent changes in management direction, from top execs' strategy down to how engineering teams (and even sprints and standups) are structured and run. There's a sense that managers don't really know what they're doing, and are just improvising on the fly. * Constant celebration of how great the company is allegedly doing, unsupported by its actual competitive performance. This gets old quickly. * Jobs and jobholders periodically get eliminated, often capriciously, with little or no correspondence to effort or performance. * Company eats product managers alive. They work insanely hard, with no real backup, understudies/deputies, performance support, or forgiveness for mistakes they inherit. * Relatively few paid holidays. * No company match for 401k contributions.
