Pros
* Highly qualified, motivated, competent team members who are outstanding professionals and human beings. * Business that invests in Open-Source development. Most of the R&D team actively develops and maintains Apache Airflow and its ecosystem. The company has an important leadership role in the Airflow 3 development, just as it had with Airflow 2. * Trust in the employees: there are fully remote positions. They offer high flexibility and independence while expecting accountability and responsibility. * Significant progress in the overall business strategy, including engineering (focus) and sales ($$). * The company supports employees during personal and family struggles in a way I had only seen much larger and stable companies doing.
Cons
* Astronomer was founded in 2018 and is a Series C start-up. It is still finding a path to profitability. Changes and reorganizations happen regularly - which may feel unsettling to some people. * As with most of the tech sector, the company experienced two rounds of layoffs in 2023 and some cuts in 2024, which gives employees some sense of uncertainty. Performance reviews are being improved, and the company strategy has improved since. * The company is still maturing from a product perspective. Competing with the leading Cloud providers (GCP, AWS, MS Azure) in hosting an open-source tool is a challenge. * Career growth has been challenging, both salary-wise and promotion-wise. The leadership is actively working on this, but it is a work in progress. * Team members and customers are spread across the globe. Depending on your role, you may work during unconventional times from time to time. Some enjoy it, and some may not. * Historically, annual company events have been male-dominated, without much diversity on stage - even though there are incredibly competent non-male employees.