Vantaggi
There were some fun employee events, infrequent but still fun, and I met some really solid people, many of whom have become great friends of mine. Even through the constant chaos, I did manage to learn some new skills so that was a plus.
Svantaggi
There was zero work/life balance. I’ve worked in traditionally difficult environments and in other startups and this was by far the worst in terms of boundaries. Managers questioned why you were taking sick/personal days, would constantly contact you well after hours then criticize you for not responding (example, was called at 1am then was scolded in the morning that I didn’t pick up, because I was asleep). Frequent changes in priorities/process coupled with lack of communication made it almost impossible to meet deadlines. You could regularly pull 100+ hour weeks (no exaggeration, as many employees during my time there worked almost every weekend) and still feel totally behind. When any of these issues were brought to upper management, they were generally dismissed or down played. Some takeaways: numerous employees, some of whom were very senior, quit on the spot with no notice, stellar employees who happened to be vocal about their issues with project direction or senior leadership decisions were let go due to “performance issues”, out of the dozens of people I started with, only one person still works at the company (most of the rest left voluntarily)