Whether you are in or you are out after *Layoff Black Tuesday*, it's very tough times ahead for Prosper ...
Pros
Good location / nice patio on 4th floor Generous food, wine/beer at company monthly meetings Good decor / casual work spaces / ergonomic sit stand desks for *everyone* / bike racks There are a small portion of competent / high grade engineers and PMs and almost all of the engineers and many PMs work very hard (it's nice to be around hard working people) Some groups in non-engineering side are full of very talented individual contributors, but alas may have very incapable mid-level managers/directors who joined the company before new management took over in 2013/14 running those teams. They mostly focus on self preservation- familiar theme here but how it happens in a startup without detection is very perplexing Recent layoffs are not too bad - if you are part of it you got decent severance and if you are good at your job you can find a similar or better job again, the ones remaining have to work even harder due to capacity shortages and probably when they get laid off in 6 months, the company will have less money to pay severance packages for them. At least now it's still early in the calendar year, economy is not too bad, compared to 6 months down the line during thanksgiving season! if you got laid off - even unfairly due to some mid level manager's politics or at best, mistake - then you got your severance. Those who leave on their own don't have this sign-off bonus!
Cons
-Tough times in capital markets -Company is not well positioned to withstand it as we are not really P2P but I2P - Institutional investors to Retail borrowers - as most of the money comes from institutional investors who are fleeing away from the company / market place lending in general -Lack of CTO shows that they haven't understood really what it takes to run a FinTech company - no true technology representative in the Exec mgmt team -Recent layoffs are just the beginning, expect lot more bloodbath by end of this year as there are formidable challenges to solve to get out of the funk the company's in -Some groups on business side are run by matriarchs and patriarchs that reward and punish by perceptions of loyalty to them (not to the company but to their person). Happens in many companies but surprising that it happens here too in a startup - Overall engineering quality is below average even though that does disservice to the efforts of many good engineers and engineering managers. This is mostly a failure in hiring than performance management
