Pros
The company presents itself well on the outside: - Nice office in the centre of Munich and possibility to work remotely for most functions - Diverse work environment (general good gender and nationality diversity, open and welcoming to the LGBTQ+ community) - Good benefits (sport, mobility, discounts on own products) - Talent Acquisition members are prepared, professional and kind all throughout the interview process So, on paper it looks like the place to be, and the company does manage to hire very talented and cool people. You will likely have great peers here.
Cons
If you are unlucky enough to get hired, that's when you start experiencing all the signs of a toxic work environment: - Micromanagement: I felt leadership was not interested in my professional opinion on many tasks and felt obliged to carry on with decisions that in my opinion would ultimately harm the business interests, or the customer's. Disagree and commit is a great principle, if coupled with accountability. But if things went south, leadership let the responsibility of the mistakes fall on who executed - The "brutal honesty" approach: honesty is at the core of air up company culture. But don't expect the radical candor type of honesty, but rather frequent front-stabbing feedback and public humiliations - Non-existent work-life balance: expectations are high, so you will likely have quite an important workload to deal with daily. Most of the employees are very committed and work extra-hours, occasionally on weekends, to keep up with expectations, without any reward (salary wise or even verbally). But if you actually get caught working over hours, you will be blamed for it and considered underperforming. So make sure you appear offline while you're trying to finish your task after 10.00 pm - Insane turnover: those nice colleagues you'd like to bond with? They will be likely gone within a few months. Almost weekly, someone leaves the company on their own or simply just "disappears" from the system, no explanation given, leaving projects and teams bouncing from hand to hand and psychologically straining who's left behind - I know it's Germany, but forget job safety: your job here is not guaranteed. Unless you're a close friend to the co-founders, you can be potentially laid off any minute, independently of performance or tenure. In some occasions, they will try to convince you to leave on your own, using classic techniques (your manager might set unreasonable objectives, publicly humiliate you, provide constant and unjustified negative feedback to make you feel unworthy of your job) In a nutshell, if you want to keep your job and your mental health, steer far away from air up.