Pros
The people are great, very intelligent and hardworking. Mid-level managers are talented and go above and beyond to support their respective teams. The work is challenging, and there is great potential to be able to contribute in a material way to the success of the company.
Cons
The CEO is very impulsive and makes major organizational decisions (reorgs, tools) without fully vetting viability of the approach. This has resulted in large-scale negative impacts to the ability of teams to be effective, incurring high costs, poor customer service experiences, and even layoffs. Recent hires of experienced industry professionals at the VP level will hopefully help minimize this going forward, but the CEO has to allow those professionals to do their jobs. There was no concept of departmental budgets up until the last 6 months. Money was spent as if it grew on trees, and then a full reversal went into effect and departments weren't allowed to spend any money, even on essential equipment. The finances have been mismanaged for years, and the first solution seems to be to layoff staff rather than make hard decisions about cutting costs. There are some great parts of the culture, but one bad aspect is that the CEO encourages managing by fear. Most managers don't buy into it, but the CEO overrides manager recommendations and decisions, so most people are on edge wondering if they have a target on their back.
