Pros
Very smart coworkers Catered food Work is relatively engaging
Cons
There are major issues with new engineering management: incompetence being first and foremost, indiscretion being another. There's virtually no thought about the long term health of the company from an engineering standpoint, as far as new management is concerned. "Agile" is assumed to be a silver bullet for fixing processes but there is neither vision nor technical experience coming from new leadership. In terms of environment, "toxic" is actually the exact appropriate word, unfortunately. I was shocked at some of the things I heard, on one occasion it was in front of my manager and others but nothing came of it. One on ones with leadership left me between surprised at candor ("who says things like that?" went through my head) and dismayed. "Toxic" describes the politics, and the management style on my team sadly (poor communication, poor guidelines, chaotic, awful delegation practices, awful soft skills, generally incompetent). You can be confident a lot of these high rating reviews are pushed/disingenuous. If you're a good engineer worth you're salt, it's best to just look elsewhere unless you enjoy daily frustration. If you're just looking for a job that pays and don't care so much, just be aware of what you're walking into politics wise. The work still is engaging and my direct coworkers are great, unfortunately we do not live in a meritocracy and sometimes people are hired to positions they really don't deserve. That's pretty typical though, and in that way Synack is pretty standard stereotypical Silicone Valley.