Great place to work until the pandemic layoffs
Pros
- Free snacks and daily catering (which got better over time) - Cool people, positive attitudes by most - Fun work (mostly) - Nice office, good hardware - Fairly flexible work hours, with food benefits for staying late
Cons
- Moved myself and other employees between teams a bunch - Lack of some modern benefits (limited PTO, no 401k matching) - Somewhat hands-off from management, leading to issues below - The main reason for lack of a better rating: the pandemic response. In early March the company informed us that we would be temporarily starting to work from home. Like many people, I left a lot of my belongings at the office, since we were given short notice and I could not carry everything back at once. We worked from home for a week, during which time I received a positive first performance review, and then we were unceremoniously laid off the following Monday morning, and quickly disconnected from Slack so we couldn't say goodbye to our coworkers. The compensation for this was decent, but it took FIVE MONTHS to get my belongings sent back to me, and not having a job made the following months and job search difficult. During said search I managed to get a really nice offer, but they asked to use my previous manager as a reference (the same manager who gave me a positive performance review, but who managed many people and didn't know me too well), and, for no discernable reason, he tanked said reference (either badmouthing me or not saying anything positive), my offer was rescinded, and he never returned my emails. I was struggling at the time, and it was devastating. I don't understand why someone would give a reference if they had nothing positive to say. Additionally, I had heard whispers that the company was hiring similar positions to mine and that they weren't doing too badly after all, but internal recruiters were fairly non-responsive and wishy-washy about rehiring. I have been honestly kindof shocked about the whole situation, seeing as the company seemed to be doing well and seemed to care about its employees prior to the layoffs. Additionally, I (and other fairly-new employees) personally lost all equity in the company, since it took a year to vest, and I was cut off just shy of that benchmark. It all felt like a combined giant middle finger to myself and my other laid-off coworkers, and I hope nothing like this happens there again.
