Pros
APFM has three really great things going for it: 1- The company does good. It helps people in a really hard time in their life (for free!). And on the other side it helps communities fill their room which would otherwise be empty. It's really nice to work for a company where if you do a better job as an employee in your core job you are making the world a better place. 2- The company is doing really well. We've had phenomenal growth rates multiple years in a row. This has meant that people have been promoted along with their abilities. There is no need to worry about your peers taking the limited promotion opportunities. You basically get to do as much as you are able to do (and sometimes more) 3- Related to #2, we have the opportunity to create what this place is becoming. The company is still small enough that every individual still has an impact on what happens. But it's big enough that what happens is a pretty big deal. It's a nice combination. Some comments on some of the critical comments I've read on here. They seem to fall into 3 groups: 1- Call Center Employees. I can't comment very well on what it's like to be a call center employee at APFM, but I imagine it's similar to other call centers (and pretty different than being a corporate staff). It would likely make sense to break out the reviews by the two types 2- Advisors in the Field. APFM has over 300 advisors working from home across the country. These people are the core of the business, but they also have a pretty different job than people working in Seattle. They are also held to a pretty high standard (as they are both the face of the company working with families, and the key drivers of company revenue by connecting those families with communities). It takes a unique person who is extremely empathetic working with people is one of the hardest times of their life, and also able to be managed by the numbers (number of calls per day, follow-up rate, warm transfer rate, referral rate, properties per referral, etc. etc.). It doesn't surprise me that some people who are very good at #1, struggle with #2. That seems to be the common complaint when I read through the bad reviews here 3- Head Office Staff. There are a lot less of these, but they seem to be sprinkled through here. A bunch are related to a group of employees that gossiped in each others offices and then all left at once. But there are some legitimate complaints. More on that in the "Cons"
Cons
In some ways the company is still a scrappy start-up. No one would blink if a start-up didn't have a great 401-k plan or a gym in the building. But when a Fortune 500 company doesn't have those things people aren't happy. The problem with APFM is it is sitting inbetween those two worlds. Only three years ago APFM was definitely a scrappy start-up trying to make things work. A lot has changed in 3 years, but the systems and processes and benefits are trying to keep up. 401K match was only introduced last year (and it caps out at a relatively low rate). There is still no gym in the building. There is no matching of employee donations. Etc. The good news is that it does seem to be getting better every year. 401K match WAS added. The year before that they added Long term Care Insurance. Every year the health care plan (which isn't very good) has gotten a little better. The other issue is that with the constant growth and opportunities comes people who don't advance as quickly. If you are at Amazon and don't get promoted for 5 years you can chalk that up to the way the company works - you can look around you and see that no one is getting promoted. But if you don't get promoted for 5 years at APFM it's harder to say that. You are left having to look at yourself critically or to blame the company. That's hard on anyone I think.