Turning from hustle startup into great work life balance env
Pros
Kikoff is a very different place from when I first joined. The culture was heavy on hustle and late night +wknd work and it often felt like being seen working long hours mattered more than anything as the former CTO would stay till midnight recognizing only those who worked crazy hours. The work environment was intense and sometimes outright hostile. That version of the company is gone now. The new CTO has clearly changed the culture. The company is so much more chill that it sometimes feel like you are working at a government angency. The old startup late night grind vibe has literally died. No leaders stay till late. Work life balance is encouraged. The pace is manageable and a lot of people treat the office like a normal 9 to 5 or even 10-4. In practice, many employees are not coming in three times a week and if you work remotely, no one will bug you. Nobody really cares what time you leave. People come in, do their work, grab breakfast and start day slow after a cup of coffee The company is going through reorg now too that this is perfect timing to join kikoff. You won't feel less valued or trusted compared to older employees. New joiners can influence things pretty early if they build relationships and understand how the org works. A lot of ideas come from the bottom up and the environment rewards being collaborative and politically aware as much as anything else. That makes it a strong place for people who want a calmer work environment. Hard work and tenure do not seem to be recognized much anymore. A lot of the older leaders and early employees who helped create the previous culture have been replaced through the reorg and the new leadership coming in from Roblox. The company feels more structured now with more teams. Pay seems more modest than it used to be. Compensation was stronger in the past with bigger yearly pay raise (new leadership killed the pay raise) but now it feels more like slightly above market and barely a raise since then. There is an unspoken consensus that everyone leaves after a year and they don't pay you per performance but more based on how much you negotiated when you first join. This in fact helped our culture that people prefer work life balance over working hard to get a very small raise Overall Kikoff feels like it is moving from a chaotic startup into a more mature corporate. The perks are solid. the office culture is social, and people actually seem to enjoy being there. There are still some team level differences but the general direction is much better than before. It is a much better place now for people who want a calmer environment. If you have a family, this is definitely a good place to work. (They used to only hire young engineers who would work crazy hours. Now we are hiring all senior folks who value family over work).
Cons
We have one of the worst chairs We are very slow in terms of AI adoption. In fact leaders are not at the frontier of AI which actually make your lives easier. Most people are just learning how to use claude code or cowork even concepts like skills and mcps are not widely understood. We have AI day where we share our use of AI. We still talk about "how to write a good prompt" showing how people don't even know prompt engineering died years ago. If you are looking to join a startup to pour your soul into, you won't get recognized in this company or paid well. That phase is gone
