Pros
- The people and the mission are great. - Great transparency with monthly all-hands meetings where we drill into company goals and why they were hit or missed. - The technology is generally solid - we have DevOps and CloudOps to keep the lights on, robust unit- and end-to-end tests that run in every pipeline, and engineers have autonomy in what tech stack to use for new projects. - There are some really talented technical minds here, and folks are generally happy to help with issues that come up. - In some cases the company will pay for conference attendance or classes. - Good work-life-balance and solid benefits (4% 401k match, unlimited PTO with 3 week minimum, HDHP/HSA option). - Annual "SonderMind Shift" event where every employee comes in person generally has engaging programming and fun team-building activities.
Cons
- Your performance is judged in part by how much you use AI. - Layoffs, re-orgs, and manager changes are common, which hurts employees during performance review season. - Promotions result in higher responsibilities and accountability but with low/mediocre salary increases. Pay is otherwise mediocre with low or no pay increases, depending on the year. - Priorities shift often and deadlines are sometimes tight. This is under the guise of a fast-moving start-up mentality, but it results in messy code and buggy products. Leadership says to spend 30% of our time on tech debt but product timelines don't allow the capacity for it. - Respectfully communicating disagreements with company policies may hurt your performance review. - DEI and accessibility used to be priorities but are never mentioned nowadays.