Pros
1. The people - I really enjoy the people I work with. People are collaborative... they do not "protect their work zone" but rather are willing to allow you to learn from them and give your feedback on how you see issues that come up within their piece of the organization or how it interplays with your piece of the organization. We are a globally distributed workforce, but I feel like we have done a nice job at still making connections between our nodes (people :-)). 2. The opportunity - Neo4j has a very exciting product roadmap and a great market opportunity. It cannot be understated how much more fun it is (for me) to work at a company with a BIG opportunity in front of it. 3. Openness - Our CEO hosts full company calls where any employee can ask questions and get candid responses. This flows down throughout the various levels of leadership. I do not feel company direction, health or any other feedback is hidden at the company but rather shared more openly than other companies I have seen. 4. The go-forward "transformation" - From my view, the company has always prioritized having the best in class product and supporting end user success. Those are musts for the company and will continue. The product roadmap is exciting and transformative in itself. In addition, there is a renewed focus on building a sustainable, well run business. We are now doing a better job at thinking through how to scale a company to the next level on an internal operational level so we can support even more end users. To me, this is very exciting and it is great to see how new people have been able to add immediate value through their experiences. We are also still investing in the company to make sure these initiatives are successful. Just this month we completed an acqui-hire to support a strategic initiative. It is great to see the company understand and realize that the world is throwing out challenges on a macro level, but we can still control a lot of our own success if we invest the right ways and build a strong company centered around serving our end users.
Cons
Working at private, high growth company is not for everyone. There is a lot to fix and improve at Neo4j. Some teams have been underfunded to an extent. We struggle at cross team alignment on strategic decisions at times and have to do more to make sure each team is not only viewing the issue from its perspective but pulling in other perspectives to make sure we are aligned. These are not uncommon problems at earlier stage companies. It is often that you wear multiple hats or are working on something you have less experience in or are working on items that feel a level below your experience... because it needs to get done. To some, that is exactly why they work at a company like Neo4j. If you have a "lets get X done because this is important for our continued growth" attitude and enjoy working through different challenges, I believe Neo4j is a great place to work. If you want a role where you work on solving the same problems through a very well organized operational system, Neo4j may be a couple years from being the type of company where you would feel most comfortable (but we are getting there!).