Pros
This company was built on some big ideas about transparency and culture and sustainable growth. When I interviewed I was quite skeptical that all of this would prove accurate, but I've been here five years and I've seen our leadership and the people around me walk the walk. I love the people I work with. They are smart, driven and truly collaborative. It would be pretty hard for me to work someplace else and have to worry about if my teammate is committed to their role and team or just their paycheck after working with the team I have here. The architecture and framework this company was constructed on was to enable individual and company growth and is centered around continuous learning. There is a very clear and transparent path and level structure along which you develop your career. You are measured against that and not your peers. You also don’t compete with your peers for the next level up. Your career path is yours, for me that’s pretty cool as it takes away wondering if someone next me negotiated a better paycheck coming in, I know what I can expect of someone based on where they are in their career and I know what it takes to move forward. In my time here, I've grown and built a whole new set of skills both in execution of my day to day work and learned leadership skills. I've watched the people hired around me grow and develop and promote up regularly and its nice to be a part of that. I also like that as an organization we are a little flatter and people have access to the C suite and market leaders. It makes it easier to learn from executives and to impact change if you have something you feel strongly about. I've seen this company adapt and make changes as we grow that push us forward and align with our core values. We have a low travel model and try to keep the number around 20% over the course of your career. Most people talk about work/life balance, my experience is that it’s been pretty good, the company and my leaders have been supportive of me when I have personal things going on and they try to consider as much as possible what impact any request to someone will have on their work life balance. Obviously this is still consulting and we are still a small and growing firm and there will be times when you have to travel or when your commute is long, but it’s something when you work in consulting I think you have to anticipate.
Cons
We have been moving toward a holocracy structure and will likely sign the at some point in the next year or two. I like it, but it’s definitely a learning curve and not for everyone. We are risk averse as a company (aligned with sustainable growth goals) but this can feel frustrating to some people when we don’t just staff up or down as needed to win a project, it means we grow over time not overnight. We have a semi-annual review process, you are promotion eligible every 12 months. This means you don’t just get promoted randomly or early. I understand how to some people this can seem prohibitive and again it’s not for everyone. For me it works because I can see continued growth and promotion and it’s not going to stall out because I need my manager to leave to get that spot. You have to travel. At some point you will travel, you will commute and you wont like the commute. Its consulting and that’s part of the role. It wont be forever but that doesn’t diminish the fact that when it happens you may not love it.