Pros
- Minimum hiring requirements. They don't expect you to be omniscient or have decades of experience. Instead, they're willing to train you from the ground up. - Relaxed dress code. Even shorts and a t-shirt are acceptable attire. - Great coworkers and managers who trust you to do your job rather than micromanage your every move. - Very aggressively pro work-life balance. - Transparent company initiatives and finances. - Overall a very fun, comfortable company to work for.
Cons
- Pay is low for the field and there is little room for advancement outside management. Employees are encouraged to leave once they have the skills and experience to find a higher-paying job. - While everyone is upfront about this, they're a bit too eager for my taste to call Shasta a "stepping stone company". Hearing that be tossed around so freely doesn't inspire confidence and just encourages turnover even more. - Being an outsourcing company, work depends on client needs. It can be easy to get stuck in a limited role without learning anything new for a long time. - Job titles don't seem to hold much meaning. Some openings I saw on job boards in the past have included Entry Level Tester, Entry Level Software Developer, Scripter, Software Development Engineer in Test, and what I applied for, Junior Programmer. While openings will have requirements that match the titles, they're all effectively just QA Engineer and it again all depends on client needs whether you'll actually use any of the skills they list. "I don't even know why you would think this would be a programming position" was just the start of the absolute reaming I endured from a senior executive during my interview. I was berated and treated like an idiot for thinking the advertised programming position was...a programming position. If I weren't in need of a job, such abuse would have had me walk out of that interview.
