Pros
I have been working at SharkNinja for over 3 years. I am an engineer and a mother of two amazing kids, ages 4 and 1.5. I just came back from attending several talks about work-life balance at the annual SWE conference, so I wanted to tell my own work-life balance story about my time thus far at SharkNinja.
My job as a product development engineer does require some travel to China, but mine has not been overly burdensome, because we have such a fantastic team of SharkNinja design and manufacturing engineers based in China working close to our various factories. In my first year at SharkNinja, I traveled twice to China, and was able to manage not to travel overseas while I was expecting my second child. One month before my baby’s due date, I was given the assignment to lead a new development project with a tight timeline and high visibility in the organization. I was grateful not to be written off or asked to “lean out” before I needed to, so I really respected my manager’s decision to put me on that project, even though my time on it was going to be limited. When my son decided to arrive 17 days before his due date, everything was fine and the team managed without me. I took my full 12 weeks of maternity leave and had a really great project waiting for me upon my return, with a great team assigned to the project and ready to work under my guidance. Before my maternity leave, I had negotiated working a reduced 4 day work week upon my return, with 1 of the 4 days working from home each week. This was really helpful for transitioning back to work during my son’s first year of life, and having a great team to work with me on this project helped make this plan a reality. For the past 6 months, I have been working on a special assignment where one of the “carrots” explicitly offered to me for accepting the project was that there would be more independent work that I could do from home. This offer was much appreciated, and the extra level of flexibility has been really helpful. I am back working full time now, and looking forward to my next exciting product development project!
Cons
It can be challenging to work in a fast-paced environment. In particular, working in product development anywhere (not just at SharkNinja) has its share of twists and turns, with some good surprises and some bad surprises. The SharkNinja company culture of empowering people has grown significantly during my time here, but I have seen people not do so well and feel unhappy when they did not feel in control. Working for a good manager who respects this is REALLY important!
