Great place to work, despite the usual start-up chaos
Pros
To start, I loved working at Flexport! Mine was genuinely an interesting and engaging job. 1) The team is made up of some of the smartest people I've ever met. They're all brilliant and innovative in their own right. They're also all insanely hard workers. 2) Everyone there legitimately believes in the company and the product, and for good reason. The business model is genius and will almost definitely succeed long-term. Flexport's software is filling a massive hole in an old, outdated industry. 3) The company divides the team into a squad model, which is an awesome way to team up and make sure everyone knows how the industry flows together. Each squad is able to divide its labor based on its unique needs. 4) A well-stocked kitchen and catered lunches are a huge money and time saver. 5) The office's location is awesome! It's right in the middle of retail-heaven downtown and very close to the BART station. 6) Management seeks ideas and suggestions from the whole team. This makes everyone's role feel a little more valuable, as ideas aren't simply dished out from the top. Further, the engineering team constantly seeks feedback from the operations team, speedily remedying day-to-day issues. 7) The whole staff has lots opportunities to participate in training. This softens the blow of the steep learning curve, as newcomers have more resources.
Cons
1) Echoing many other reviews, the biggest con is the lack of work/life balance. The company is growing as such an astounding rate that it simply can't hire fast enough, and not for lack of want or effort. That said, the hours are long and the demands are very high, sometimes downright unreasonable. 2) In keeping with the above, compensation is far too low for the hours required. When hours and salary are broken down into practical terms, the hourly rate for work is inadequate, especially given the complexity and time urgency of the work. 3) Internal competition can make it too intimidating to use the "unlimited" paid time off that the company offers. Also, because the company is perpetually understaffed, taking time off can be impossible; frequently, employees have to answer emails, etc. while "off." 4) Managers have a tendency to railroad employees into reporting greater satisfaction than would be genuine. There is an overarching culture of pressure to remain cheerful and avoid dissent. Although they do use anonymous surveys, this is somewhat undermined by weekly face-to-face sync-ups. 5) The social element of the company is pretty lacking (or at least it used to be). 6) The CEO showed far more interest in the software team than in the operations team, even on a personal level. While I understand it is engineering and software that set Flexport apart from its competitors, it's important to remember that, without the tireless grunt work of the operations staff, the engineers would have no demand for their innovations.
