Pros
Having worked at a number of different software firms, I can say that Uptake's engineers are truly intelligent and driven. It was a genuine pleasure to work with them and there was a combined work ethic that's pretty unique. The technology stack was very interesting and it was a good chance to pick up several new skills and hone others. I also thought the compensation was very fair and the hiring process was transparent.
Cons
The technical leadership lacks focus and often gets stuck in the weeds. During my time at Uptake, we had a vision of an answers platform with no real direction on how to get there. There was a lot of short-term thinking and focus on tools rather than a more strategic approach. Engineering leadership was often difficult to approach, turning the briefest chat into an interrogation or defensive conversation. No real accountability from any executive in this department. Beyond that, our Sprint teams were subject to a rather radical interpretation of Agile Scrum which promised many meetings and much confusion. While there needs to be a development philosophy in place to bring forth a product, I felt this was overbearing and frequently used as an excuse to pass blame rather than enable good engineering. Ultimately, work-life balance became a forgotten concept and the expectation for after-hours/weekend work became the norm. I tolerated it with the hope that we'd learn from the errors in planning, but I was mistaken. Overpromising without desiring to understand barriers to success and/or address them was a frequent mistake of leadership.
