Great Team, Challenging Work, and Collaborative Environment - Principal Software Engineer Lightning AI Employee Review

The team is smart, collaborative, and deeply invested in design and AI-first thinking. The platform, built for PyTorch workloads with multi-cloud support, is genuinely unique. Fast-paced, challenging, and rewarding if you love shaping the future of AI. - Clear mission and strong product focus - Talented, diverse, collaborative team - Cutting-edge AI platform with multi-cloud support (neoclouds and hyperscalers) - Emphasis on thoughtful design and developer experience - Exec team likes to promote from within so an excellent place to grow your career - Work hard, play hard; truly a fun place to work if you are passionate about the mission

- Fast-paced environment typical of a scaling startup - Some internal processes are still evolving

If you are a software engineer this is probably a great place to work. There is a lot of room for individual creativity, minimal oversight, and project ownership. Everyone else has a very different experience. One more pro: if you are able to stay for more than a year you will almost certainly be promoted, but mainly due to exceedingly high turnover, not growth.

The company leadership and interdepartmental relationships are appallingly toxic. Leadership has introduced the workplace philosophy of “radical candor” which so far just seems to be a method for us to publicly criticize each other. Company wide surveys are embarrassingly biased, and there is blatant favoritism. All of this combined leads to an environment that is increasingly contentious, demoralizing, and punitive.