Pros
+ Technology
Everyone on the tech team codes to some degree all the way up to the VP of engineering... even the CTO gets his hands dirty sometimes.
We try to use the latest and hottest technologies and keep the framework versions to the bleeding edge. I found this very hard to do in companies that have tight dependencies with legacy systems.
+ Continuous deployment
For most services, deployment to production is done several times a day.
+ Learning opportunities
Snapsheet has sponsored every conference I've wanted to attend and they pay for online courses.
Additionally, every other Thursday we have the opportunity to present our work and research to the entire engineering team. This gives us the chance to grow as a public speaker, or learn from peers.
+ Hackdays
Every other Friday we have Hackdays where we can work on whatever we want. The only condition is that our project has to positively impact at least one other person at the company.
You're not supposed to do any kind of work related tasks during hackdays. I think the company does a pretty good job at enforcing this. After all, hackdays seem to be in the DNA of the Snapsheet culture.
Things that I've seen come out of hackdays include: open source PyPi and NPM packages, Ruby Gems, Sublime and Atom plugins, Chrome plugins, internal services that streamline the development process, a frontend kit, several machine learning applications using NLP, image recognition, etc.
+ Open Source
Writing open source software and reusable packages is extremely encouraged. This gives each of us a chance to showcase our work to the world while actively building Snapsheet's credibility in the software community. While some companies might shy away from open source, I like that Snapsheet realizes this win-win opportunity.
+ Perks
We have happy hours every Friday - a bartender pours beers and wine until 9pm. We have team outings at least once a month like Built in Brews events.
Our team frequently uses the game room equipped with ping pong, foosball, PlayStation, Nintendo switch, pop-a-shot, bubble hockey. Don't expect to be able to win a ping pong game for at least a few months.
+ Low Turnover
In my 3 years at Snapsheet, I have seen less than 5 people from the engineering team leave the company.
Cons
- In many instances, the technology used by insurance companies is very outdated, and sometimes we need to integrate with these systems that are poorly supported.
On the flip side, I think this is the very reason why Snapsheet is so successful. It is the first company to identify this gap in the industry and do something about it.
- Processes change fairly often to accommodate to the growth of the team.
