Pros
If you didn't learn something here, you were asleep. There are many thought leaders active, and they don't rest on their laurels. They do avoid cultish devotion to the common agile practices, and as a result, have come up with some neat flexible concepts that are still agile, but not hardline. Unfortunately, a lot of that energy has been channeled into hero worship. They promote a transparent, open-door workplace. While this is untrue, the pride they take in this deception often leaves room for enterprising individuals to try and leverage some positive change and use the excuse of open door policies and transparency as reason for why they strayed from their designated areas.
Cons
They are aging out of relevance and don't seem to know or care. A millennial or younger is going to likely find the culture cringy and tone-deaf. Not to mention white. Oh, so middle aged and white. This was something I brought up to my immediate supervisor as a concern who said it was due to a "selection bias" and that "certain people don't sign up for these jobs." This is of course demonstrably false given my experience in previous roles and my new role. I also brought this up to more senior people as a concern, and was listened to politely, but nothing else. They promote a transparent culture. In this transparent culture, I was told not to worry while on the bench (between actively working on contracts) and that a new client was coming and I was going to get on it. The next week, they furloughed me with no notice along with a huge batch of others. The person who lost us a previous account was not furloughed, but the people they hired to save the account after being oversold were given the boot. Beware the backroom meetings. If you aren't part of them, you might be the target of them. They promote an open door policy. This policy hits a bit of a snag when the CEO is openly hostile to people speaking up. The morning meetings consisted of people preparing and organizing compulsory presentations for the CEO, in which he was so accessible, he would tear their ideas apart in a way that showed no empathy or appreciation for the work they did for him. This led to a huge number of people who refused to speak in these meetings for fear of walking into the "Mike Buzzsaw" (this is the actual term used). They spend thousands on meeting after meeting in groups following these incidents explaining why he behaved in such an inexcusable way and how to avoid his ire in the future. It was a surreal experience. They are chasing their tails. It is sad that they have such a great system, but struggle to implement it because they can't seem to unify on how to get it done. Prior to my first engagement, I was given 2 weeks to learn before I started implementing their proprietary system. I ended up attending orientation classes meant to teach me things I had implemented over a month prior. They don't really practice what they preach either, so much of my time in orientation classes was, "Wait, we are supposed to have that? That would have been helpful." As a result, the client suffered. I'm not an accountant, but if you are losing clients and dipping into emergency funds should you host an all expenses paid in-person event complete with a concert for every employee? I don't understand that. Also, the middle aged guitarist CEO performing for his employees during this event was also a lot.
