Learn from industry experts & ship to millions
Pros
Work life balance. They treat you well, first and foremost. From vacation to stipends (Gym, Massages, etc) they really make sure you have sustainable mental & physical health for continued employment. Everyone is very rigorous. This can make things slow moving. This can be frustrating. But you'll only ship the highest quality code, and you'll grow from these high standards. This leads to a cleaner codebase & some grey hairs. I feel like I can talk to anyone at the company. Every team is always willing to drop everything and help you out. The entire company feels very transparent - from the glass meeting rooms to the opportunities to ask the executives anything, in front of the whole company. They really encourage continued education. They'll have tech talks, tons of classes to learn ANYTHING, even weekly courses on Improv & public speaking. A programmer can take a class that introduces them to product design. I designer can take programming classes. You can have a yoga class upstairs between your meetings, for free. Any equipment you need to do your job well, is yours. Little justification is necessary. They want to empower you. There's endless food, daily froyo, and a few happy hours per month. Some are INCREDIBLE, with bands, adult moon-bounces, etc. The culture. There are so many fun people here. The mailing lists are hilarious. People love the product, love the impact it has on the world, and love the fun it can bring as well. The employees really believe in the core values here.
Cons
Some people take this generous treatment for granted, and leave. It hurts to see your friends at work move on, but that's how this industry is. Good memories were made and cool projects were shipped. I think diversity initiatives have gone a little too far here. Suddenly there seems to be disproportional amounts of women getting hired into management. I think diversity is a good thing but it feels very, very forced. Some women teamed up (after the "Frat party" incident) to push alcohol out of the workplace entirely. It wasn't 100% successful, but is scary that people team up to kill culture. No more happy hour beer pong, and most floors are now void of the cute beer fridges. Let me assure you, they weren't abused. They were mostly used on Fridays after work, or after shipping something cool as you watch the results & feedback stream in. Work goes on, but it's now missing the spark and edge this place used to have. It's matured and not caters to a few whiney old people who wave the PC & diversity wands. I think the hiring bar is dropping. Although they say we only hire very passionate people, many have argued to hire people that didn't even bother to sign up before flying across the country for the interview. That brings me to my next point. Some non-passionate people were hired for their intelligence but not their personality or passion for the product. They're the minority, but they bring in some likeminded people who don't talk much. There is also a lot of bureucracy, and some managers have way too many direct reports. It's easy to get lost between the cracks, and easy promotions could get dragged out forever. Stock is down. Wall Street needs to realize what Twitter is about, why Facebook is jealous, and how to empower Twitter. Measuring DAUs and other social network stuff isn't the best. Or so we've been told.
