Pros
- Supports and encourages change. With broad support for making changes and the processes required to make those changes stick the company is able to act quickly while still making meaningful, directed changes and evaluating them appropriately. - Teaches and employs Lean principles. Kaizens, pareto charts, 5S, IPOs, and all the other tools and lingo - you'll become proficient in what it is and how to apply it to help steer the company. - Encourages cross-disciplinary teams which is very helpful in understanding the depth and breadth of questions, as well as building more interdepartmental cohesion/focus. - The company is interested in training and retaining staff, so you'll get to know people and grow together. My skillset has grown significantly since I started, and I fully expect to be working here for the foreseeable future. - Remote work friendly, depending on the role. I've been primarily remote since two years before the pandemic. We've had significantly more workers switch to remote since then, and we've embraced many of the remote tools needed to keep up communication. - Actively solicit feedback from staff at all levels, both directly and anonymously. They also actively respond to and apply that feedback. - When jobs and needs change the company has consistently managed to find new ways to utilize and grow staff instead of laying people off. - Company strikes a good balance for salaried positions between "butts in chairs" and "just get the job done". Many of us have things that we need to attend to during the week, like picking up the kids or getting to an appointment, and so long as the work gets done the company has been pretty reasonable about adjusting hours as needed.
Cons
- It can be frustrating to build support for changes before picking up lean concepts. - Pay is based on local industry standards for positions, which puts upper and lower bounds on each job title. It's important to make sure that your job title reflects what you do if you want to get paid appropriately. On the bright side, they've been willing to add new job titles based on industry standards to support new or mixed roles where necessary. - The best healthcare benefit plans and incentives are based on living in the San Diego area, so I had to get a marketplace plan instead. - Work/life balance can be difficult at times, especially within IT salaried positions. IT has been short staffed for a few years now, which usually translates into salaried staff throwing 5-10 extra hours into the week to get stuff done. Fortunately, we have a solid team, so we have been able to rely on each other as needed, and that helps to diminish the impact of this. Additionally, we're trying to hire new people, so it's less an issue of undervaluing IT and more about getting the right people.