Pros
There is a lot to unpack here. I'm only covering the basics. - Friendly and collaborative environment. - Highly intelligent and motivated coworkers. - Solving a critical problem in an industry run by ageing incumbents. - High agency is encouraged and rewarded. - Wide range of technical problems (AI (classical and ml), Physics, at-scale Analytics/Processing, nontrivial UI/UX, etc). - Lateral movement is common and supported by management. - No-blame culture. - Overtime is opt-in with little exception. - Merit based performance evaluation with a focus on metrics (no stack ranking). Engineers stepping up / being promoted is the norm. - We’re entering an exciting phase of growth that opens up lots of opportunities for Engineers to step up and help scale up our platform and offerings.
Cons
- As with any startup, growing pains exist. They are often addressed as they are identified; however, it’s very much an ongoing process that is expected. If you are self-motivated and have a builder mindset, you will have a great time. - The feature surface that the platform covers is very large, and as a result, there is a sharp focus on building the right thing at the right time. I personally believe that the balance is correct; however, the rate of change may come as a culture shock to developers with little to no startup experience. - Technical debt (gradually being removed/rewritten). - There is an over-reliance on Slack as a communication tool. - The large number of markets and time zones results in many (asynchronous) after-hours messages and requests. As a general comment, if you have any questions or concerns, I recommend reaching out to current/past Engineers for more information and advice.
