Pros
Excellent work/life balance and they managed to assemble a fantastic engineering team. A company I was proud to cite as an example of an employer who does unlimited PTO right, never feeling like I had to delay scheduled time off or that I couldn't take what I felt I needed, which was usually between 3-4 weeks in any given year. Perks and benefits are very nice compared to lots of places, and they paid for my parking when I worked in the office downtown. The ability to work nearly anywhere is also very nice. Despite the issues I'll outline in later sections, honestly one of the best jobs I've had thus far with the exception of just about any time I spent there this year.
Cons
Root has basically taken a nosedive since their IPO and it honestly feels as though the company has little to no idea how to turn things around. Attrition was bad enough in 2021, then they laid off nearly 50 engineers (among over 300 people laid off) only to turn around in a month and lift their hiring freeze as the attrition rate shot upwards again. To my knowledge the rate of hiring has not managed to keep up with the rate of attrition. Their process for promotions is also a giant black box. I know many engineers who spent far too long trying to get promoted only to leave in frustration or leave not long after they were finally promoted, clearly already feeling burned by the process. Apparently it's easier to get hired in at the next level than to be promoted, which is never good. Continued refusal to publish the pay bands also doesn't help, and given I've been able to learn how wide some of these bands possibly are for some roles I suspect it's because many will be very unhappy if the bands were made known, if they even truly exist.
