Pros
Pindrop only hires the best, most experienced people, and it shows. Everything from quality of work, to random office discussions, there's a feeling of geek family and being around like minds. You will not be the smartest person in the room. It doesn't feel cliquish, and everyone seems to get along very well with an extremely low drama factor. The work is challenging and demanding but it is satisfying and feels like you have a real impact on product direction. There's also an emphasis on experience in the hiring process, which means it's a more career mature dev staff that has an enormous amount of past real-world experience. Everyone is absolutely stacked with skills, no matter what department they work in, they're probably among the best at what they do. Several times I've seen the impossible get done, things I thought would never work, it is always pulled off. In fact, I've never seen it not work. Pindrop has an incredibly ability to get it done when the pressure is on. Timelines are short, 2015 is 20 years ago, 6 weeks is the new 6 months. Things change every day and that requires an open mind and embracing change. Pindrop has Real Customers and an Actual Product that people use and are happy with. It's not without issues, but this isn't a moon-shot startup anymore, and the products are making the world a better place. Vijay is incredibly driven and its an honor to work under him and follow him to great things.
Cons
Communication suffers greatly at the mid level. Vijay does an outstanding job keeping everyone informed from the top with the frequent updates, with more transparency than I've ever seen. Team-level communication within a product family is generally pretty good and most have a decent grasp on what is going on and which general direction it is going in. The struggle is between departments, and possibly at the top of each department down. Often, the major divisions of the Pindrop organization have little idea what the others are doing or what challenges they face. Members of one organization are not invited to participate in parts of another organization, which leads to a lot of: "throwing it over the fence", "that's their problem" and having someone hand you a grenade with no pin. This all creates resentment and it's not healthy in the long run. I like the other departments and what they do, I want to spend more time understanding it. We can all help each other out if we understand each other's struggles and motivation. Requirements can often be vague. Process needs to be documented better and enforced to ensure consistency in the organization. It's not uncommon to be confused about what you're supposed to be doing as far as process goes. This is a common problem in a company growing so fast, and I'm pretty confident it will be worked out as Pindrop adjusts. The engineering staff was doubled within the last year and that takes some getting used to.