Pros
- Starting salary and benefits are competitive - Opportunity to wear multiple hats and get hands-on experience - Fair COVID-19 policy - Employees are good to work with - At first when I joined things were great and exciting. But after a few months things started to slide downhill, and eventually plummeted into a toxic and chaotic work environment, thus it was no longer the right place for me.
Cons
- No overtime pay - Marginal raises, not enough to account for inflation - Inflexible work arrangements, WFH was removed for "communication" reasons which did not improve it at all - Very poor project management, I have never seen worse in my life - Just about the worst team communication I have seen in my life - Leadership started out OK but in less than a year became basically a totalitarian state, with just a few people having personal favor for no apparent reason - Culture went down the drain along with leadership - Leadership is no longer transparent especially with its own employees, it hides important information, twists the truth, literally whispers behind people's backs and does not even do a good job at it - What was presented and sold to me when I interviewed with the company was not in line with reality and what I experienced there. I also believe it is similar for what is presented to people outside the company. The marketing is deceptive. I can't help but think also of Theranos and FTX... - The technical progress that was made while I was there was far below what I thought it would be. Huge risk to complete the planned projects in the set amount of time - Big decisions were often made unilaterally, and sometimes rushed at the last minute, resulting in wasted money and time and rework - Some physical equipment/resources built with low quality causing wasted time - Leadership does not know how to properly hire staff to cover project needs, yet decides to whimsically let people go who made major contributions to the company - Too much dependence on contractors vs full time employees creates project risk and lowers the value for employees, thereby increasing risk of turnover for the company - Leadership is highly reactive rather than proactive in coming up with solutions or resolving issues. Much of the time they would just ignore issues when brought up by employees. I heard a lot of crickets there. - There are some diversity issues in regard to gender, esp female personnel, and diversity of thought. Leadership became closed off to others' expertise and opinions unless it matched their own pre-conceived notions. That is hugely unhealthy for a young company that needs to experiment and learn. - If you consider yourself a generally moral/ethical person, I would highly recommend against this company. It poses itself as a pioneer of science and doing good for the world, but inside is rotten and has so many technical holes that would probably take years to fill. It's sad that with such potential for the company vision, too many personnel and unnecessary technical issues are keeping it from taking off. If it continues down the path it was on when I left, I fear its headed full speed into the ground that its supposed to image. - I think there is still a chance for the company to be saved but it would take a complete change from leadership to turn things around. I did what I could when I was there, and since my efforts were fruitless and rejected, the only thing I could do at that point was save my own career and go somewhere else.