Pros
With 10+ years in the tech industry, I can truly say that Learning.com is the best place I've ever worked. It's a small company, so it has a bit of a startup feel to it where your contributions make a big impact and your ideas are taken seriously. At the same time, it's been around since 1999 which is pretty ancient for a tech company. I think it's a good blend of the excitement and energy of a startup with the stability of an older company that's weathered some ups and downs and managed to stay in business.
Pay and benefits are generally inline with other tech companies, although the 401k match could be a little better. There is indoor bike parking, showers for bike commuters, and reimbursement for bike commuting related expenses. My favorite relatively new benefit is 40 hours per year of Volunteer Time Off. The company has also started to organize volunteer opportunities, so far at Habitat for Humanity and the Portland Food Bank. The work/life balance is also amazing and the best I've ever experienced at any company. Flexible schedules, remote work, and ample PTO including the entire week between Christmas and New Year's off. It's much more about what you produce than how many hours you are in your chair. Health insurance options are good and relatively affordable. The company has done a great job of shielding employees from rising insurance costs. There is also a comprehensive "Employee Climate Survey" every year and management takes the results seriously and acts on them. I've never seen anything like it anywhere I've worked. It really shows how much management cares about what employees think and shows their willingness to act to improve things.
The best part of working here is the people and the mission. The team is incredibly intelligent, creative, and passionate about the work we do every day to bring digital skills education to students nationwide. There is a culture of continuous improvement that encourages trying new things, but also learning from mistakes and failures.
HR takes nurturing the culture seriously and truly helps us embody the "work hard, play hard" ethos. However, the culture isn't totally driven by HR either. Employees take an active role in driving the culture including through employee led committees like the Diversity and Inclusion committee and the Employee Relations committee that organizes all kinds of fun events from holiday potlucks, to the best Halloween party you've ever seen. I am so proud of the great strides Learning.com has made in the area of Diversity and Inclusion, something that is sorely needed in the tech industry, especially in Portland. With the formation of the D&I committee a couple of years ago, Learning.com has done many things such as revamping hiring and job posting practices, hosting D&I related education opportunities for employees, and signing on to the Tech Town Portland pledge that have made a real difference in making it a more diverse and inclusive place.
Like any company it's age, Learning.com has it's fair share of technical debt. The main product is pushing 10 years old and it shows in a lot of places. That said, great strides have been made in the last few years to start to address this. Being a small company allows us to be nimble and try new things without the bureaucratic bottlenecks and resistance to change that plague so many larger companies. As an engineer here, you can expect to spend some time working with old tech and fixing bugs, but you can also expect to spend a lot of time working with newer and even cutting edge tech like Docker, microservices, Angular, etc. Time and budget are there for you to get any training you need. The best part is that your ideas for improvement will be listened to, taken seriously, and actually implemented. Many companies pay lip service to the "open door policy", but here it actually exists.
Finally, Learning.com is coming off of a few tough years. Turnover has been higher than normal in the last year and has taken a toll on morale. That said, I truly believe that the executive team and management have made a concerted effort and have done a good job of analyzing where things went wrong and are taking the right steps to right the ship. Some of the turnover was a natural and healthy part of "cleaning house" so we could move on and make the changes we need to in order to remain viable and relevant to our customers.
Cons
401k match could be better.
We have tended to focus on the "shiny, new thing" at the expense of iterating on our existing products and making them better.
The office space could be better. The HVAC system has constant issues, space could probably be utilized more efficiently, and the lighting could be improved, it's dark and dingy in a lot of areas.
