Pros
- Innovative culture, very smart people, leadership with a clear vision. I'm constantly impressed at the velocity of the features we ship.
- Flexible work arrangement that centers around results and making your meetings; otherwise you use your time as you see fit.
- Accountability is built-in. Everyone takes ownership of their work down to the IC level. We're held to a high standard, which is a good thing.
- Modern, effective tooling in all areas. Ticketing and docs, AI assistants and collaboration. They'll get you the tools you need to work how you want and be productive.
- Pay is not geographical but is very competitive. They aim to recruit top-of-industry folks and as far as I can tell, pay fairly for that talent.?
- Benefits are solid. No 401k match and other things not typical of a Series B company, but good healthcare, some nice perks. One company holiday per month (First Friday). They care to keep employees happy, healthy, and rested.
- The team is worldwide - North and South America, Europe and the Middle East. I think even some folks in Asia. Somehow the timezones don't cause us major problems. I don't understand how, but we make it work quite well. Clearly it's related to the flexibility each employee has to work as they see best.
Cons
I see very little in my first months. I came from a place that was comparatively chaotic, so this has been a breath of fresh air.
A lot of companies that expand quickly find themselves drowning in confusion, tech debt, and wasted effort.
Monarch is taking a deliberate approach to expanding quickly as its customer base expands, not just throwing money and people at problems and assuming enough of both will fix things eventually.
I've seen the "throw investor money at everything" in action and it...is not great. So I appreciate the deliberateness, which is not the same as "overly cautious". It just means allocating resources where they belong, building features customers are excited about and that deliver real value.