Set unrealistic goals, lay off talented staff… profit?
Pros
+ High-quality product: The best at streaming anime, and committed to continuous improvement. + Global reach: Crunchyroll is one of the only streaming media services available in most countries, and is committed to providing the best fan experience it can in all of the territories where it is available. Users complain about the product all the time, but the relationship with the anime community is also very positive much of the time. + Being the biggest player within its niche means that Crunchyroll enjoys good relationships with rights holders and a relatively low amount of content churn. + It's a great place to be an enthusiast of anime or Pacific Rim pop culture more generally. + Adequate benefits. No stock-based compensation (options or RSUs), but 401(k) matching and most roles include a performance bonus that has for many years paid out at maximum rate. Health insurance is fairly standard for larger tech companies and provides good family coverage. Most offices have free lunch and a good array of snacks and beverages.
Cons
- Politics: the two legacy organizations (Funimation and Crunchyroll) do not mesh well, nor do they trust each other. The recent layoffs were largely clearing the decks of senior legacy Crunchyroll staff and in many cases had little to do with the productivity or contributions of the people affected. - Brain drain: many of the most experienced developers and capable leaders have left over the last three years, either due to burnout caused by frustration with the organization's seeming inability to act decisively or because their skills and contributions were not adequately recognized. - Incoherent focus: the leadership (or perhaps Sony) seem dissatisfied with the state of the business, despite consistent, strong subscriber growth (and almost always hitting growth targets). There is some idea of a 360 business strategy, but sometimes that comes at the cost of solidfying the core user experience. - Many of the engineering managers are software engineers who were promoted into management, and have swapped being talented developers for mediocre managers. - Many of the directors are not capable of effectively managing managers. - The company is globally distributed but relies on synchronous communication and planning to get things done. Decisions are almost always made in meetings. Hope you like Zoom! Depending on your role and location, working hours can be awkward. - The technical organization's mastery of its own platform is inconsistent, and stability and resiliency for customers suffers as a result. - Some of the engineering teams are understaffed (due to difficulty in hiring rather than lack of budget) and some of them are stuck in a persistent malaise. - Information is poorly distributed through the company, leading to contention between different parts of the organization and wasted effort.
