Pros
A very fun, laid back environment. Jeans and a t-shirt are preferred, and no one will get on your case for chatting with a coworker, or throwing foam darts at them. Company events are pretty amazing. Feel free to go running or cycling at any time during the day, as long as you're getting your work done. Great pay and benefits, relatively to other Utah companies. Formerly there was no 401(k) matching program, but one seems to be in the works for 2014. 100% medical and dental insurance. As much PTO as you and your manager deem appropriate. The office is beautiful, big, and has a pretty stunning view of the Salt Lake Valley. Really smart people. Because of the pay and environment, many of Utah's best engineers (and a number from out of state, as well) call Instructure their home. While the transition from startup to mature company has been rough, as the company grows, much of the leadership is becoming more and more experienced, as well. Catered lunch once a week from decent restaurants. Pretty self-explanatory. Huge growth, and a bright future. As others have mentioned, Instructure is headed for an IPO within the next 2-3 years, which will make a lot of folks significantly wealthier. It won't be anything like Facebook's or Twitter's IPOs (no freshly minted billionaires here), but it'll still be a decent chunk of change for a large percentage of the company. Not to mention the resume benefits. Role flexibility. Because of the agile, startup-like environment, there's little likelihood of being stuck in one role and forced to stay there for years. People are constantly putting on different hats, and titles mean very little, for the most part. Yes, engineers write code and support answers phones, but there's still lots of wiggle room and overlap among responsibilities. Plenty of folks have moved from department to department, some even multiple times. As the company continues to mature, this may become less true, but up 'til now that's how it's been. A CEO with former founding/startup experience. Josh knows the drill, and he's pretty well-informed as to what it takes to build a successful company, at least up to IPO. Post-IPO, I honestly am not sure where things will go, but we definitely have a solid direction for the next few years, at least. A product that's well ahead of the competition. While Canvas is by no means the best, most useable product in the context of software as a whole, it is nonetheless dramatically better than other popular Learning Management Systems. An LMS is an incredibly complex application in general, and thus is very difficult to do right. As such, we enjoy a significant competitive advantage, and growth is likely for the foreseeable future.
Cons
The company culture is quite insular and difficult to break into. If you have a resume made of gold and are the brightest mind in your field, then you will likely be welcomed with open arms. Otherwise, though, there isn't much in the way of welcoming or outreach to new hires, or old ones, for that matter. If your first impression doesn't match the generally accepted view of what's cool or desirable, then you will likely feel isolated and under-appreciated. There is very little in the way of training. Instructure employees are expected to learn on the fly and be extremely flexible in the way they do things. This can actually be a plus, but is often a minus because of the confusion and lack of organization it can create. Some people in management positions have very little experience actually managing, and can therefore miss some of the softer, but nonetheless critical, aspects of supervising people. Impossible to know right now, but potential future difficulties because of the early pace of growth. I'm wondering if the breakneck speed at which we've been expanding and hiring will come back to bite us in 5 years.