Pros
The people. The opportunities. The experiences. The culture. From the moment I walked in the door three years ago, I've felt like Slalom offered me more than a job; it offered me a new way of seeing myself and a chance to build and shape my future. And, in my role and my level, that's not something I expected to find at this stage of the game. I love the people. People are at the centre of what we do here, and we're so lucky that our TA team works hard to find the right people. Every day here I am challenged in the right way, I'm touching so many different things and working with so many different people. It always feels like no two days are alike. Slalom has offered me personal and professional growth by virtue of the work that I do every day and because of how fast we've grown in Toronto and, now, Canada. There have been opportunities for me to step up and work directly with leadership on a number of initiatives that have had a positive impact on our team across the board. If you're seeking opportunity to grow yourself, your team, your capability, an initiative, whatever it may be, there is space for that here. But you *do* have to drive that on your own sometimes. If you want a place that will hand you something for nothing, Slalom isn't for you. That being said, if you're passionate about it? Do you want to make it happen? Does it *mean* something to you? Then you will find the support here to do it, if you show that you're willing to be accountable and drive it. And I love that. It's that attitude of ownership and accountability that means there's no end to what you can do here. Not to mention the fact that there's no shortage of fun events that run the gamut from mid-morning stretch sessions at the office to weekend long company retreats (with only fun stuff!!), Hackathons with an opportunity to travel to our other offices, loads of snacks in the office, and a culture that makes you want to stay and hang out with your colleagues instead of racing out the door to be anywhere but work.
Cons
I think anywhere that has experienced such rapid growth is going to have some pain points. We went from being a scrappy-start-up-vibe to a big company with a real presence. Fast. I think there is some catching up to do from a leadership perspective to add some additional rigor to processes, to continue being more transparent around promotions etc. and being able to support growing teams from a people manager perspective (eg. really getting that ratio of people manager to independent contributors right so that PMs can really continue to focus on their people).