Pros
The technical work itself was solid. I gained substantial experience managing cloud infrastructure at scale, and for most of my tenure the day-to-day was fine. If you keep your head down and stay in your lane, you can build real skills here.
Cons
After three years as a W2 employee, I accepted a full-time position elsewhere but was offered the opportunity to remain as a 1099 contractor to ensure continuity for the systems I had built and maintained. I continued in that capacity for another two and a half years, bringing my total time with the company to over five years. Then, one day without any warning, I found that all my access had been revoked. There was no conversation from management, no transition period, and no chance for me to document or hand off the institutional knowledge I had accumulated over half a decade. Here's the kicker: this decision didn’t come from leadership. A single systems administrator—someone without managerial authority over contractors or staffing—took it upon himself to terminate my access, and apparently, that's acceptable here. When I reached out a few days later to understand what had happened and to try to resolve the situation professionally, my efforts went nowhere. The bridge had already been burned. At that point, I decided it wasn’t worth fighting for—if this is how they treat someone after more than five years, I would prefer to part ways. This experience speaks volumes about how this organization operates. One individual with no real authority can end a long-term working relationship, and leadership either doesn’t intervene or simply doesn’t care enough to take action. There’s no governance, no process, and no accountability.