Pros
Fun atmosphere, team bonding events, rapid growth
Cons
While Rackspace is a fun place to work for most of the employees, it does have some low points just like any company. The sales side has always and is still plagued by a "good old boy" system where middle management tend to hire their drinking buddies and friends. One example of this is when a co-worker of mine had an internal interview with one of the managers and he actually stopped in the middle of it because he could tell the manager wasn't paying attention to any of his answers and "wasn't into the interview". Even though my co-worker had worked there for a couple of years and was qualified the manager already had someone picked that he wanted to hire from outside the company. Rackspace also has a very strong PR engine, maybe too strong however. There's a point where you drink "too much of your own kool aid" and you pat yourself on the back a little too much. This became apparent when someone I knew applied for a position and came to interview. He was walked around and got to spend time in the work environment and talk to a lot of people. It became apparent to him quickly that the people he spoke to were not on the same level as he was and he knew he would have difficulty working in that environment so when the Rackspace recruiter extended him the offer, he politely turned it down. The recruiter went off on him telling him he was making the biggest mistake of his life and that this was Rackspace and he was a fool to burn this bridge. He simply replied that he guessed it was his mistake to make if he wanted. Salaries are another thing, they tend to be below average especially when compared to their competitors which is why they lost a lot of good talent over the years to the competition. A lot of people like the thought of working at a place like Rackspace however and will overlook the lower salaries. Rackspace has enjoyed tremendous growth over the years, however this is a double edged sword. Many of the people there get promoted quickly due to the company preferring to promote from within, which is admirable, but can cause issues when a person gets promoted too quickly. This leads to a huge gap in capabilities between a senior manager at Rackspace vs a senior manager at another company in the industry. It's not uncommon for someone to be promoted 3 times in 2 years. This of course is part of the reason there were two rounds of layoffs at the company (which were not advertised of course) where they weeded out quite a few individuals, although this was mostly on the sales side. All in all, it's a great place to work for most of the "rank and file" employees such as account managers, sales, marketing coordinators, etc. but it can be a very difficult environment for core developers or data architects to work in. Rackspace is still a great company that has introduced new and cutting edge services and has given back to the community in numerous ways, just keep in mind that every silver cloud has a dark lining.
