Pros
- Immediate management is encouraging, wants to see you succeed, and is flexible -Great colleagues! Everyone is approachable and is always willing to help. Plus they are all very smart and competent. You will learn a lot from whatever team you are working with. I onboarded remotely when I started and did not see my colleagues in person until a good 4 or so months in. But I managed to create great relationships with them from the get go because the people culture is well curated. Whether you are remote or hybrid, you are in good hands. -Cross department interaction. Again, each department has certain employees with VERY diverse skill sets. It is encouraged to speak with them especially if they are on projects -Work life balance was great. Had no issues asking for time off as long as the work was done (which can obviously vary depending on time of year like any company) -Healthcare/Dental benefits are easily one of the more competitive set of benefits I’ve had in my career. From what I remember, you do not pay the deductible. Very niche vertical (load testing, QA, API’s etc). SmartBear owns a lot of space in this domain. They are privately owned, but because they are successful in this very niche domain, you do not feel the PE pressure (at least as an IC) like you may at other private equity owned companies.
Cons
-The pay is not as competitive as it could be, especially in tech. I understand SB is trying to grow, but you need to recognize those doing the work and reward them with a solid comp. raise. COL in greater Boston is high, plus you are expecting employees to commute to the office again. The comp needs to be higher if you expect us to commute to a place like assembly, which is already hard to access if you are not within range of an Orange line. -Company is growing incredibly fast, which impacts certain teams trying to do work. Integration/operational consistency takes a bit of a backseat because of how fast everything is growing. -There is most certainly politics in areas of the business, but that is at every company. I think they are managed pretty well at SB compared to other places I’ve worked. -Career progression is sort of vague at times.
