Pros
Great tech. Compensation can be good depending on which team and group you are in. Lots of room for experience. There seem to be some really brilliant folks in the UK. The founders (in Finland) seem to be good and caring and very bright people--but they are far removed from ops in other countries.
Cons
Aiven (North America in particular) is an environment that lacks direction, processes, and standards, and churns through employees like they are expendable--because they are there. As noted on many of the other reviews: Beware when you are encouraged to speak up about improving process, environment, engagements, etc. Note that when/if you do, you are identified as a non-team player and will be targeted. Inclusion doesn't really exist. There are definitely secret clubs and unfortunately, we saw employees being promoted to management and lead positions--without allowing any other team members the opportunity. It would just be casually announced at a meeting that someone was being promoted--without any open position, and without anyone on the team even knowing there was an opening. This does not foster trust at all and furthermore disrespects all team members--it's blatant favoritism. Also as noted in other reviews, people often disappear without any notice--either having quit or having been fired for being identified as a problematic/negative employee. Mind you, this could be for expressing ways that the teams could improve things--both internally and externally with customers, etc. You will quickly learn to keep your head down and be silent. Many folks (on various teams in different geographic locations) were often working 12+ hour days (and calling in to meetings on their PTO and holidays, etc.). This was still not enough effort to complete the extremely unrealistic workloads. The stress that other folks in other teams are under is compounded when (not if) you are not able to essentially do the job of what should be four or five people. This adds to tension within internal teams. Overall a very poor work/life balance. Those in management positions had no experience or any apparent guidance and would leave the burden of conflicting (mostly all high) priorities and unrealistic expectations on the individuals without much guidance. Basically, you would hear: "It's up to you to manage your obligations and time and commitments and expectations..." And when you tried your best to self-identify the constantly changing but not communicated priorities (basically came down to which issues affected the highest paying customers), you would pay the price for not meeting all of your objectives. It would be noticed and documented. It's nearly impossible to be successful there. There are frequent reorgs at Aiven that hint that perhaps at some level, the company is trying to fix what they must know is a very broken environment with low morale. This could be good if the outcomes of those reorgs included positive changes. It was not uncommon to see very high turnover in what appeared to be almost every group within the company. We lost track of the people who just quit--without even having another job lined up, because they were just so burned out. We saw quite a few people only lasting a few weeks or a few months, and then just quitting--this says a lot. When repeated requests for staff augmentation continued to be ignored, the "unofficial" reasoning was essentially "more employees would dilute the stock price." While this is great for the founders and senior leadership, it's not very good for most employees that have continued to see their options drastically decrease with each round of funding. Another huge problem is that Aiven does not (and will not) talk to customers. There is no phone support. Aiven support (officially) will only allow email correspondence with (even enterprise) customers. This puts a lot more stress and pressure on folks that work at Aiven that have any customer interactions. When customers want answers and there are no answers available from any internal Aiven resources, it puts employees in an extremely difficult position. And note that when you are forced to respond to customers and you say anything (can't stress this enough) that someone internally doesn't like--it will be held against you. This is noted in other reviews as well. Sadly, you are encouraged to ask for help--but know that when you do, it will be held against you--see this documented in numerous other reviews, it is common practice at Aiven. Again, watch your six.