Contradictions, Micromanagement, & Bikeshedding Culture
Pros
Co-workers are incredibly talented, geographically diverse, lovely people. Direct managers have good intentions and listen to feedback even if they don't have the power to change anything. Once a quarter, we receive a random non-holiday day off. Co-working weeks in cool locations with boarding and part of travel reimbursed. Pay is good; benefits are not so good. Honestly, the worst medical/dental I've had in a long time.
Cons
If bike-shedding were a culture, this is it. Are you ready to have multiple meetings about padding and border weight yet ship without QA or ANY tests? Almanac is the place for you. Almanac likes to promote a healthy work culture through social media and blog posts, but don't be fooled. The opposite exists internally. "We work asynchronously," but they have multiple sync meetings daily. When employees live worldwide, someone is attending a meeting at midnight+ or before 8 am. "We are fighting burnout startup culture," but the CEO has hustle culture nostalgia (check out his Twitter). He explicitly says he rewards those who work nights and weekends, @ people after hours for non-blocking bugs, and schedules after-hour meetings/one-on-ones. You'd better have rock-solid boundaries because guardrails do not exist here. They had a social media post, something like "(*Forget) meetings, and camera-on culture." Yet they literally have a policy that states they expect cameras during meetings, and the CEO will call you out for it. During a large hiring push they advertised certain "extra" perks/benefits. As soon as that push was over those benefits were walked back. So many contradictions it makes one dizzy.
