Pros
* Fantastic place to learn from your peers. Surrounded by people who are knowledgeable and experienced. Code reviews and everyday discussion teach one tons. * Working on a cool problem, fueled by the data science. Watching insights pop up and then hearing that they actually helped is very satisfying. Being a part of the software that surfaces those insights was very rewarding. * I had a great relationship with my engineering manager. He protected us from company politics and cared about us as people. * Most senior engineer on my team was a great teacher and was insanely knowledgable about his craft. Was awesome to learn from them. * Exciting office environment, although this started to slip during my time there. * Broad array of technologies to work with. I was able to get exposure to many different systems and languages. I didn't work closely with many, maybe even most of them, but I can know speak with at least some authority on them.
Cons
* Lack of direction from the top. There were many different paths taken during my time there, but none of them seemed to lead towards one overall goal. We seemed to change what we do a lot. Insights? Data Viz? App based, platform based, SAAS, PAAS, bespoke apps, build your own apps, I saw it all. * High engineering turnover. Things were stable for about a year, but after that the constant change started resulting in tons of turnover. Yes- constant change is a given in startups. BUT, when that change doesn't streamline our goals or hone in on the refined vision, they seem pointless and just another 'pivot'. * Engineering architecture - there were many massive decisions that were never documented or discussed. One or two architect level engineers (who, according to their title, probably shouldn't even be involved in pushing code) willed completely new ways of doing things into existence. And then the entire engineering org had to align around those standards. * Reinventing the wheel - uptake seemed to have a hard time focusing on what exactly we did and putting all of our resources there. We rolled our own versions of countless systems or processes that could be much more easily purchased or obtained from the open source community.