Vantaggi
Some of my coworkers are really smart in their fields.
Svantaggi
Due to poor management, the organization has experienced a decline over the past few years and has now been dissolved.
Vantaggi
All engineers have their own office, which is exceedingly rare. They offer any kind of on-site/remote hybrid work arrangement.
Svantaggi
I guess any kind of downside wrt government contracting work apply to VRL as well
Vantaggi
The technical depth of the team is amazing. We have a lot of complex challenges to solve in a specialized cybersecurity domain with a team who isn't shy to dig in. The team strikes a good balance of collaboration and internal knowledge sharing, while still allowing individual engineers the time needed to research, learn, and then prove out ideal solutions. Regular "Tech Talks" are awesome to learn about other internal projects, a new programming language feature, or dig into a recent problem and its solution. Then to round it all out, training and conferences are encouraged to push skills even further. Management is always trying to blend an engineer's preferences and technical desires with company needs when giving tasking and assigning to projects. Tasks tend to use strengths while also pushing skill growth as well. Career progression is mostly based on an individual's abilities and ambition to contribute or lead complex projects. Our quarterly company meetings and ad-hoc discussions do a great job of sharing the direction of the company, seeing the effort made to deliver to our existing customers, and finding new customers that keep the company in a stable, methodical growth mode. As with anywhere, deadlines and overly busy periods happen, but management tries their best to keep a calm, reasonable work-life balance for everyone. At my past companies, it felt like every day was a fire drill customer emergency, which from my perspective, just isn't the typical day at VRL thankfully. I love the company events and other activities that create additional social opportunities to get to know everyone beyond technical discussions. Who doesn't love frequent company breakfasts/lunches, fully-stocked kitchens, and personal offices too?
Svantaggi
As a smaller company, engineers are expected to wear a lot of hats and grow lots of cross-domain knowledge. I don't personally mind this because there's always something new to learn, but I know that some other engineers (especially if they come from bigger companies) can find this challenging. Additionally, as a smaller company, we have a pretty flat management structure which is great to be exposed to more areas of the company easier and potentially have greater influence/reach as an engineer, but requires more emphasis by the individual employee to self-direct and manage their own technical and career progression. Due to customer needs, we often can't use many bleeding edge languages/tools, SaaS, or cloud platforms, but do a good job trying to keep our developed software products up-to-date with the latest stable versions of platforms/languages. Internal infrastructure and computing resources are always a top priority too though!