Pros
Great colleagues and a friendly, collaborative environment. The work is technically engaging and feels similar to a post-doc, but with better pay and solid technical support—when funding is available.
Cons
Poor leadership and lack of clear technical direction. The executive team often pursues funding without a stable vision, frequently shifting priorities to align with where the money is. They tend to set extremely ambitious goals to attract investors—goals that are known from the start to be really, really difficult to achieve. When those targets are inevitably missed, funding dries up, triggering another cycle of cuts, project halts, and layoffs. Yet the same leadership team stays in place while the technical staff—the ones actually doing the work—are let go.