Vantaggi
I've always believed fully that every person at AO is doing their best to do right by each other. The organization feels more like a co-op to me than a top-down business. Even when there's tension among teams or between leadership and makers, it's clear that everyone involved is trying to align on the common goals of doing good, interesting work well for fair compensation. There's lots of mentorship. There's opportunity to progress and take on new roles if you look for it. And there's space to just lean in to your craft and stay put, too. This org is not perfect, and sometimes I disagree with the decisions being made, but I don't think there's an organization on earth that can make every person happy with every choice all the time and still stay in business.
Svantaggi
You get pretty limited say in what projects get picked up, so sometimes you have to find ways to make a dull gig interesting- the managing partners do listen and do their best to match people with projects that they enjoy, but sometimes other constraints win. It's true that you could probably make a higher salary via a remote job for a huge product company, but I think that working face to face with good people is worth the difference. And at the end of the day, billable hours are what keeps the lights on, so it can sometimes be tough to make a case for activities and benefits that chip away at them (e.g. leave, outreach activities)