Pros
Flexible PTO (aka unlimited), typical 401K match, casual office environment. The people at Techstars all have awesome backgrounds and I truly enjoyed the people I worked with on a day to day basis. There's an amazing amount of talent within the company.
Cons
The company culture at Techstars is broken. While management talks a lot about diversity, growth, opportunities, engagement, etc. I found that there wasn't truly awareness about how lower level employees were feeling (questions for leadership around pay that came up repeatedly were attributed to one disgruntled employee rather than considering that maybe lots of people had the same issue). Many of my colleagues and I felt overworked, underpaid, under-utilized, and under-appreciated. When I was hired, my manager told me I was overqualified for the role but there was "so much opportunity". Over the next year, my team was downsized 3 times, I had 3 months without a manager, and my new manager said "I don't sit around and think about your career" and that while he knew I was doing more than my existing job description, he didn't understand why a promotion would be so important to me. While I loved the program managers and others I worked with, I felt like I was pigeonholed into a role that, in my mind, was supposed to be a stepping stone. I spoke to HR several times and they acknowledged there were issues but they didn't know how to fix them. Techstars execs are great about creating roles for people that are in their inner circle, but not about retaining and developing talent across the board. While I'm grateful for my experience, I'm glad I left.
