Great People, Great Culture - Software Engineer Ab Initio Employee Review

I get work with smart, friendly people on interesting problems, and I don't have to work crazy hours. The cafeteria has really good food.

The open office can sometimes have enough noise that it's distracting. Some of the code is arcane.

They really invest in training people. They trust you with a lot of responsibility for early in your career. All Field Consultants are ostensibly equal so flat hierarchy, no promotion rat race Decent work-life balance Very smart, kind coworkers who you can ask for help. Cannot emphasize this aspect enough. Had a lot of trust in leadership The technology stack that you use is great and well-documented Good food. Good office Company has the benefits of a large enough company, e.g. great mentorship and organizational structure. It has the benefits of a small enough company: you know most people and you get ownership of projects.

Overall: the place is optimized for employees who stay there forever. Not necessarily the best place to start your career and then leave. Training takes forever. They're not great about giving code reviews, which makes learning tough. You get very good at Ab Initio's proprietary technologies, at cost of learning other tech. Lack of promotion structure feels a bit existential (not a huge problem). Field consulting had a massive organizational restructure a few years back, which caused some growing pains and a "spikier" work/life balance. Office is in Lexington, can be annoying to get to.