Pros
junior experience and decent money
Cons
Let me preface this by saying that I understand how the job market is. New grads can't get a job in CS and everyone wants to make six figures in tech in SF. It's true: you will make a good amount of money working here. But if you have any other options - and I mean any at all, I would take some time to really consider what you want. I've heard a lot of people give reasons as to why they joined: work in the AI space, living in San Francisco, join small fast-moving startup. And I will tell you right now that every single one of these people has regretted their decision, because working here is a bigger con than any sort of benefit that you can find at this train wreck of a company. When I first joined, the work was somewhat interesting. We got to work on production systems and add new features that helped our enterprise customers. But then the generative AI wave kicked in, and then ensued the most short-sighted, irrational development strategy I have ever seen. For the last 8 months, we've been chasing this new market - forcing junior engineers to churn out finished products that they have no experience with at an insane rate. Management has no idea what it takes to build real cutting edge software systems, and their egos and stubbornness prevent them from actually hiring people who do know how. The tasks I received near the end of my time there were characterized by unrealistic deadlines, ill-defined goals, and incredible micromanaging by people who did not know at all what they were asking people to build. The engineering force is almost entirely composed of new grads and ~1 YoE, and management just can't fathom why we can't compete with OpenAI and Google and Amazon, and they take it out on us. It's just delusional. Management prides themselves on the fact that Hive has not had any layoffs despite the economic downturn. If you're interviewing currently, you've probably heard this and taken it as a sign of stability. What they didn't tell you is that the C-suite is always itching to fire someone. We lose people every week - they either burn out or get fired. New grad 2 weeks on the job? You can expect to be dumped on a high priority production project, and if you don't finish it, don't expect to last long here. They're always looking for any reason to get rid of engineers - and the worst part is, they offer no mentorship or support. "Senior" engineers (>1 year) are leaving by the dozen. Managers are ill-equipped to help their juniors, and there is absolutely no incentive at all to invest in any sort of long-term employee retention strategy. No code review, no formal documentation or onboarding, no decent third-party infrastructure (the company is cheap as hell and does not buy any solutions from other companies), and everything here is duct-taped together and one bad crash away from exploding. Don't get me wrong - you will learn a lot about the basics of how a production system works in your first month or so. After that, the burnout will start to settle in - the futility of your tasks, the emotional abuse and lack of respect from the higher-ups, and the complete disregard of boundaries in the name of insane timelines (don't be surprised if you get messaged at 9 PM asking something to be done "ASAP"). People are depressed, anxious, and stressed as hell when they get to their one year, and with the outlook of the business (trying desperately to raise Series E, terrible also-ran generative AI products, stagnating revenue), it doesn't look like the equity and options will be worth much anyways. Save yourself the trouble and find somewhere that won't chew you up and spit you out. If you have no other option - you need the visa sponsorship, or you just need some experience and money, just know what you're getting into. This ship is not going to last long unless there is some change - and they are not willing to change, even if it runs this company into the ground.