A great software company for life after college
Pros
Culture and people. APT has a unique war room structure where you sit in a pod of ~seven teammates during the day. It fosters an environment of discussion, knowledge-sharing, and humor…it’s not a place where people stare silently into their monitors. The people are a blast to be around…intelligent, driven, but not too serious. Everyone is super friendly and helpful; it never feels cutthroat. Ballston, while pricey, is a cool, unique neighborhood. It’s extremely walkable, so most people get by without a car. Most of the engineers live in the area, and the proximity makes it easy to hang out on weekends and make friends in this new city. Worklife balance is mostly great. I average about 46 hours per week. I’ve only had 3 weeks in 2 years that went above 50 hours. The problems we solve are interesting, especially for a business-to-business company. On-boarding is effective; you’ll have a great idea of what you’re doing and the impact it’s making almost immediately. Senior management are competent and approachable. APT genuinely cares about everyone’s development and wants everyone to be in a place where they’ll actually enjoy what they’re doing. And they give everyone an individual advisor to make sure this happens. Team events are high quality and high quantity. Compensation is high – the signing bonus is unparalleled, and most people get 5-10% raises every six months.
Cons
While the worklife balance is good, you do have to fight to keep it that way. There’s always a lot to do and you often feel like you either need to stay late or just leave a mountain of unfinished tasks on your desk. The talented coworkers are a double-edged sword: it’s easy to bring your A game and still feel average Washington DC is a transient city and lots of people you meet will move away within 2 years. While tight deadlines are very rare, they are miserable when they do happen.