Pros
-Free stuff -A semi-decent paycheck -Nice colleagues
Cons
-An array of mediocre mid-level managers with little to no technical expertise -Vastly too much work piled on too few workers -60 hr+ typical workweek is expected. If you work any less and you don't get enough done, that's on you. -Weak 401k matching, weak benefits, weak stock options. The worst con of all is that none of the above is set as an expectation going into the role. Being hired in and speaking to the hiring manager, I was told specific numbers in terms of the workload I'd face, and what to expect -- needless to say that workload was effectively doubled upon my arrival and little to no help could be offered by management. Most of the managers themselves don't have the technical expertise to even begin to do the work we were doing either. So we had these people that didn't know how to do our job, telling us how to do our job... Not to mention, on top of the hair-on-fire attitude shared by the entire support organization, the tech stack itself is so old and dated that when something does break (which happens constantly), the repairs take a long time. In fact there is an entire team specifically devoted to answering the highest priority complaints about business critical bugs and technical issues, and they're practically the most overworked team in the organization! Just goes to show how incredibly unstable the software fundamentally is, along with the severe ineptitude of the employees charged with supporting it. To go even further, individual employees are treated as numbers, to be micromanaged, and judged against one another constantly. In fact competition is so openly encouraged that most lower level employees develop anxiety and depression in the role they're given. Makes sense, they are worked to the bone.
