Rational and low drama, with a management team that walks the walk
Pros
Guidewire delivers on all the elements that should matter most to us as professionals: work on challenging problems that matter for real organizations and society, a collaborative culture with like-minded colleagues, and opportunities for growth and reward - all within the frame of a stable and long-term strategy. I feel like the company is a rare bird in the tech world: substantial in scale (>$350m in revenue, with a market value currently around $3 billion), growing pretty quickly, but not huge or well-known among consumers or even people in software. Over the last year or so the company has announced a significant expansion of its scope, which makes a lot of sense and provides a lot of scope for growth.
Cons
The work can be stressful because customers are very demanding, and often create their own problems. The code base is now very large and complex, and there is a ton of work to keep it from swamping forward progress in features. The management team understands that software engineering is hard and requires a lot of smart people working hard over a long period of time, but it does feel as though we're always short-staffed, despite considerable hiring efforts underway.
