Pros
There are two ways going about business in IT (but also in other industries and even sports): 1. one puts oneself first where personal profile and individual achievement trumps everything, and 2. when there is teamwork and _collective_ learning, problem solving accomplishments, development growth, and innovation lead the way. The Company has unashamedly chosen option no. 2: teamwork. There are many online ways of collaborating remotely and these are being used to great effect. Beyond that, the Company has chosen active direct interaction to complement that, either bringing younger and older generations together under one roof in the London office (that enjoys a fast growing array of indoor work-related and recreational breaks facilities), regional offices (mainly in Europe but growing elsewhere), or facilitating International travel for people to go to various locations where the Company has offices or individual employees. There is no evidence of an elitist approach where managers only care about their perks and are ready at all times to pull rank. Instead, the motto of the Company is very simply: if a Manager cannot do the work of a regular developer or support staff, they do not fit in the organisation. For example, the Company has very young Developer Team Leads who are fully allowed to and will suggest and instruct how things should run in their project to Technical managers taking direct developer's responsibilities. There is substantial level of democratisation in all aspects of problem solving and design, so that anyone can (and, in fact, are encouraged to) propose or develop an architectural solution, reviewed by a large body of developers and business analysts, all of which are welcome to comment and question the course being taken forward. The Company follows _in practice_ the principle that the failures are not punished, but instead, are learnt from. A failure is often a sign of an honest attempt to do better, to improve on the status quo, to innovate. Of course, the usual caveats apply where failing fast is preferable to long drawn-out investigations. The core technical competences are fast moving resilient distributed systems in the Cloud and functional programming (mainly, typed Scala based on Typelevel and custom shared libraries). Finally, possessing a good personal moral compass for any employee and Company-wide integrity are paramount to how the Company operates. This sets a very high standard that includes simple things like not lying about anything, not bragging about one's personal successes or generally, being self-centred, readiness to help others in an unassuming way, giving one's best to better the Company results, the workplace, and mutual job satisfaction.
Cons
There are logistical problems that the Company will need to address to continue tracking in the right direction. Mainly, being very International with the core office in London, England, involves natural difference between distributed "hubs", with harmonious joint progression and collaboration yet to reach the full potential. It may appear as a small cultural shock to some where some staff have never met each other while a few years back everybody knew everyone. It is a growth problem and shaping the Company for that future is and will be an amazing task with great potential and chance of success.
