Pros
I love working at Optima because I'm surrounded by people who are passionate about providing great technology to our customers. The owners are dedicated to providing a great place to work for their employees more than any other company I've worked at. Examples include: catered lunches on Fridays, concert and sporting event tickets, family events, and great equipment (fast PCs, Aeron chairs, stand up desks, etc). The project I work on has clear goals and my team gets the resources it needs to accomplish its goals. We also have a great deal of independence in terms of defining how our team works to achieve sprint goals. The relatively flat organizational structure makes it very efficient to get answers to questions / affect change. Optima's rigorous hiring process (my final interview was a 3 hour whiteboard session) ensures that the people you get to work with are extremely competent/smart. I'm challenged on a daily basis to become a better engineer by my team and managers. I learn something new every day.
Cons
Some may find the mix of newer technologies and legacy / older technologies a bit frustrating. The company's been around a long while, so this is a normal part of technology. The company has clear plans on migrating older systems to newer technologies/patterns, but this will take time. A developer that feels they can only work on new development or that is biased towards one language/technology or another, may not be super happy in the end. Optima focuses on hiring only the best talent (top 10%). If someone is used to being the lead, and comes into the job as a new team member with that expectation/attitude, they will be unhappy. I came into the job with 20+ years experience. Outside of Optima, this is something special. At Optima, that can be the norm (e.g. most of your team is as or more experienced than you...). Your position on the collective team at Optima is based upon your contributions, not your years of experience.