Pros
I worked for Action Verb for 4 years or so, ending in 2015. I stumbled upon some very negative reviews here and am truly disappointed at seeing them, as Action Verb was one of the *most* positive and best experiences of my entire career, hands down. I can definitively say working at Action Verb helped me learn things which were absolutely vital to me starting, building, executing, and maintaining a 10 million/year revenue company in Alexa Top 100, that I built from absolutely nothing, with no hired help, with my own 2 hands. I started out learning ruby in my bedroom 10 years ago, built up my skills, and then joined the AV team. The CEO lead me on the most incredible journey of extreme learning/self-challenge/growth/experiences that to this day has NEVER been rivaled. Progress and self-growth runs through my blood. Perhaps the other reviewers wanted to work at a place with things were glossed over and sugar coated... who knows... what I can tell you is: The owner is extremely gifted technically, and has high expectations of how things should be. He's honest, sincere, supportive, and doesn't hesitate or beat around the bush. He articulates things well, and is ALWAYS willing to help and explain advanced technical concepts or things you currently are struggling with. I absolutely thrive in this environment, because I'm a competitive person and it allows me to compete with myself. I faced new very difficult challenges every day and he was always there the entire way, making time in his busy day to help me with anything I needed a little extra support on. Likewise, the entire AV team was very talented and always willing to be constructive and helpful. The CEO also heavily values culture, which was new to me at the time. He takes very good care of all his employees, and always empowers his staff. I felt like I had -true- freedom to express/be/do who I am, in every sense of the word. He'd let me propose and use technologies I liked and wanted to use. If I had a crazy idea at 2am he would always be eager and willing to listen. He'd listen without interruption to any suggestions or feedback. I also always felt like I could disagree without facing negative consequences (whereas some people tend to keep quiet because they don't want to face resentment or other nasty hidden agendas). Conversations do sometimes get heated, but not 'abusive' as another reviewer put it. It's more about nipping carelessness and laziness in the butt. You won't ever be criticized for making an honest mistake. My intuition says some of the previous reviewers may have gone into the job with lackluster intentions and weren't expecting pushback. I could be wrong as I've never met them, but I myself worked there and I know who often struggled and who didn't. If you expect to show up and coast through the day putting in 50% effort, this isn't really the place for you. If, however, you are a person who wants to learn 3 years of tech in 1 year, be supported and nurtured along the entire away, and experience rapid self growth, learning, and a lot of fun in the process, this is the place. The quarterly meetings are also very cool. You get flown out to any various nice location where it's days of coding, strategizing, events, beer, good times, and laughs. Working here was truly a wonderful time (technically, mentally, socially), I highly encourage it. Even in my wake of my company's success, I sometimes contemplate going back to work there full-time after I exit, just because of how absolutely fulfilling it was. Other pros include: - Work remotely - Freedom to work on what interests you, including working with new technologies - Exceptionally talented team technically - Very solid revenue growth / job security - Great salaries - Very awesome culture - Very good benefits, health and otherwise - Fully autonomous management style (a modified version of holocracy), where you are your own boss so to speak
Cons
I think I articulated the pros well above, the cons are more about the fact that you may have to face some parts of yourself that lie beneath the surface which sabotage your progress (laziness, lack of integrity, not doing what you say you will, carelessness, not thinking through problems completely, knowing an action is wrong and doing it anyway, etc). Quite simply, those tendencies don't go unnoticed here. Working remotely is a special beast of its own, because when you don't have an office to go into you need to focus more on personal accountability. For example, I'm a very motivated person, but there were some times where I felt uninspired and instead of speaking up I let it show in my work. It's those times where you may get some words from the owner... it's a respectful, blunt, honestness. I really wouldn't have it any other way to be honest.