Pros
"Freedom and Responsibility" rings mostly true, although you'd have to be stupid to not realize it isn't 100% true always and in everything. Simple, indisputable example: you can't decide how much you make, yourself. That's an obvious statement, yet it proves there definitely are no-goes and as such, gray areas. In practice, it hasn't been an issue for me--just clarifying. You want X number of monitors, Y super-amazing-computer, come in at 11am, leave at 4pm, take numerous vacations, ask (and receive a real answer!) dang near anything about what movies/shows they're secretly bidding on in Hollywood, etc, etc. Not only things a reasonable person would want to do/have, more like a well spoiled person. This all assumes you are communicating this with your team and performing well above average--Netflix does *not* knowingly hire junior, mid-level, or wannabe-senior engineers. I haven't personally seen a bunch of people get fired, but of the one or two I've seen, it was not surprising. I have noticed some teams are more critical of performance than others. Like any company of a decent size, not every team has exactly the same culture. Mine was absolutely wonderful day-to-day. My managers help you and coordinate, more than "manage" me, which is huge just by itself. To this point, most engineering managers I know of aren't really programmers, which I think is a huge bonus because there is far less risk of them wanting to micromanage projects and implementation details. That said, they are ALL very very technical and can fairly trivially smell BS. Salary: you'll be more than happy as far as I've heard from co-workers. For me, they made it impossible for me to ever even consider leaving because of salary. Almost every place I've worked prior, I had at some point felt underpaid. Not here, I felt very much appreciated and paid as such. Summary: YMMV, like in every big company, but seriously that's super important to understand, but my experience was amazing and by far the best place I've ever worked, all things considered. I left for personal reasons that aren't related to Netflix--wife/family stuff.
Cons
If you're not a high performer, but you manage to sneak in, the fear of being canned could certainly be real since YOU WILL inevitably be discovered. But don't second guess yourself. It should be obvious whether or not you are a high performer. Sometimes discussions on the Freedom and Responsibility culture turns sort of cult-like. With a select number of people, questioning its real-world implications has been met with very clear disgust, almost denial. Very rare, though. For me was trivial to brush off.
