Tech team has a solid foundation but there's always room for improvements
Pros
- Trunk Club's real strength in their tech team is being great at hiring smart, thoughtful, and accountable people. Regardless of other material cons, this is something most companies can't get right no matter how much money they throw at ping pong tables, free snacks, etc. You really just like working with almost everyone you encounter there. - Tech leadership is super open to feedback from all levels. They might not being able to act on everything but it's safe to share and they will take it seriously. You just need to obviously not be a jerk about it and want to make positives moves to resolve issues versus just complaining to complain. - You get a lot of autonomy and freedom to plan out your own work and it's about if they're seeing results and not following some elaborate process. Also teams get autonomy in how they want to work and what works well for that team specifically. - As an engineer you feel like the leadership and team trust you to make good decisions and to get your work done. You get hands on with stakeholders, data science, design, etc. - No hard deadlines or unreasonable demands from business, good environment of healthy pushback when needed - Work/life balance is pretty great. Sure there's on call after hours but everyone is super helpful and you never feel alone at least if you're working on an incident. There's no expectation that you take work home with you or that you stay late. Work hours are flexible as well. - Interesting time at the company right now as the new leadership is acting on new strategies that have really impacted the financials positively. So there's a lot of momentum, excitement, and demand on the tech team to deliver. - Fantastic apprenticeship program and environment of learning/mentoring. - Work from home policy is flexible and unlimited PTO is truly unlimited. - Nordstrom/Trunk Club discount is nice
Cons
- It's not a tech company, it's a retail/sales company so much of company communication is not geared towards you. This can be impactful in how I think the business invest in the tech team. - Comp/Benefits: Comp is above average for juniors, probably in line for mid level and I'm not sure about seniors. I think the benefits (medical, 401k) are below average, I think HR and the leadership know this but it's hard to change. It's not aligned with Nordstrom benefits, so there's no 401k matching or fully paid medical/dental/vision. This can be a real con if you have a family or have needs that would make these things significant cost to you. - Career Progress: The biggest pain point here is from those mid level engineers trying to get promoted to senior. There's been turnover of people in this particular point in there career. - Raises: Raises are done annually for everyone at the same time. So if you get a promotion within 6 months of that time then you don't get a raise. Additionally raises are generally just cost of living increases. Real raises are tied to promotions which if you stuck in the position I described above then it can be a bummer. - Bonuses: No annual bonuses, you can get spot bonuses but my impression is that is at the discretion of your manager and is not to be expected. - Workload: The team is staffed and worked to capacity. There's really no wiggle room if someone leaves or is out. While the business is understanding of things just not be able to be completed, it still feels crappy to not deliver. - Office: The office space is just alright. The tech team just rejoined the main office building and there's a lot of room for improvement. This isn't a tech office with free snack, ping pong tables, collaboration spaces, etc. The set up feels more like a sales office packed with desks. They are trying to fill in some of issues as the move is now settling, and leadership know about the issues being raised so that's helpful.
