Pros
Ambassador is in a great place right now: we have a rare opportunity to build a new product and a lot of financial runway to do so. The company has undergone some big org changes but has left us with a tight knit group of talented engineers who have a lot of autonomy to design and build this new product.
Even in this fast paced startup environment we maintain a culture where PTO is encouraged and taken, work alternates from product-defined tasks to self-defined tasks, and engineering feels empowered to follow best practices and produce high quality work.
It's rare to have a chance to build a product from scratch - not only that but also rare to do so with a group of mature engineers.
Cons
Ambassador had to make some big changes back in the fall of 2023. The legacy products, despite being loved by users, are not selling; hence the reason for pivoting to build something new. The biggest challenge today is walking the line between maintaining the legacy products while building out the new one - it's a balance to do what is right by our existing users in addition to investing in our future with this new product.
Making a pivot like this in any company can obviously lead to unhappy former employees. But I'm confident that after the changes we are now left with an energized and motivated group, not just in engineering but across the company.