Exciting and Challenging - Software Engineer SendGrid Employee Review

- culture and people are amazing, they challenge you and push you to be the best version of yourself. - decision making process is astounding for a company of our size. Product, finance and engineering decisions are made in a very data-driven way. - Willing to discuss the hard topics and make the most informed decision. - Benefits are amazing, free lunch everyday is fantastic, i hope we don't lose this. - If you're motivated and willing to work hard, you can be recognized and tasked with more responsibility. I've seen many people grow their careers here and be promoted every year based on their performance and determination.

- typical pains related to integrating with Twilio after the acquisition in Feb of 2019. Most painful of which is the figuring out how we make decisions now as one larger company. (Twilio has less process / standard way to make decisions, SendGrid has a formalized process). - The general energy of the company is lower now after the Twilio acquisition – still positive but now that we're not a standalone, public company, there appears to be less control over our business (email, email marketing) destiny. - Culture of Twilio, while close to SendGrid's, is definitely different and will take some time to feel part of one

Before I even officially started, it was recommended to read: "Radical Candor", "The Alchemy of Growth", and "Competing Against Luck". The company, and senior leadership has a maniacal focus on culture. Every 'Gridder' is evaluated on their ability to get work done, give honest feedback (kindly), learn and grow in their role, and contribute to others' success. We never do anything alone. Cliche analogies aside, it really does feel like you're climbing a summit. Your skill on it's own is ok, but success relies just as much on the person on belay. The company definitely cares more about your health and wellbeing more than any other place I have worked at. The benefits reflect those values and make it easy to get healthy lunches, find support in meeting your personal goals, and go out and do something fun. Feedback and rapid iteration are key values, resulting in processes that have more polish than fortune 100 companies. The focus on taking feedback at every step and making sure very iteration is better result in artifacts that feel like it took 10x as many people as we have. The work is fun, the teams are extremely supportive and tight-knit, and you'll learn more in 6 months than you thought possible in a year.

Not on my team, but I have heard that at times, people are too determined to be 'nice' and fail to deliver needed feedback when performance isn't great. I admire the companies commitment to delivering valuable, honest, and timely feedback in a way that's both constructive and unquestionable.