Pros
Ability to work closely with other departments is a great opportunity for personal growth. Your coworkers are usually self motivated, have "good resumes", and are personable. The fast pace and chaos, while at times stressful, makes the days pass quickly. Work life balance is not as bad as other reviews make it out to be leading me believe the company is either improving or my role is just manageable. Pay and benefits are above average for industry, but this is not a high rolling tech company and the pay/benefits are set accordingly. The balance sheet is black and the pandemic has been great for business.
Cons
There’s a weekly crisis that could have been called out weeks earlier if the pace were slower or there was more ground level support. VPs will spawn into a daily meeting, drop a critical request stemming from a 5 minute product review with executives, and leave causing the entire team to swirl and immediately fix the issue. The problem you are ignoring this week is next weeks major issue. You will not learn best practices. Most skills learned are non-transferable to established or self-aware organizations. Upside is juggling tasks with moving targets is a unique skill if you can sell it! Teams are more focused on catering to upper management whims than developing useful products. You will wish more experienced team members would speak up on obvious issues, but they are too busy manning the fire extinguisher… Managers embrace the chaos (we’re cross functional!) and make subordinate responsibilities ambiguous. Even the executives seem confused on what their responsibilities are!