Pros
- Work/life balance was great, but only because I strongly advocated for it myself. I worked remotely and signed off at 5 daily. I was hired full time, but after I started, it became clear there was an expectation to be available after hours and on weekends to troubleshoot app issues, which was never communicated during the interview process. After I pushed back about this, the company began including on-call expectations in job descriptions for new engineering hires. I frequently saw other engineers responding to requests outside regular work hours while I did not. - they would pay for you to go to conferences every other year
Cons
- There's not much opportunity for career growth here. A lot of my time here felt stagnant as far as growing as an engineer. - Pay was average for the work. I initially started at $95,000 USD annually and a year and a half later I was promoted and bumped up to $115,000. Mind you I was the sole mobile developer that built their mobile apps from the ground up. The original job description had the pay range at $95k-$125k I believe. - Like many private companies, Ludus offered stock options as part of its compensation. However, after a legal restructuring and my sudden departure (I left with no notice), I was not included in the new entity’s equity plan, and I was not given any opportunity to transfer or convert previously vested options. The option to actually exercise my stock options during my employment was never actually accessible either. Their online portal had it disabled and the incorrect price was listed. Despite communicating this with the CFO, the issue was never fixed. - When I joined, the company had very little structure. They continued to hire people here and there, but towards the end of my tenure there, they began to grow rapidly and got a cash infusion from an investment company. They also restructured to new entities twice. Sudden, rapid growth might sound great from a C level perspective, but as an individual contributor, it felt unstable. - Growing expectations during feature development often led to bloated requirements with no deadline extensions. The product and design teams constantly added additional functionality and requirements to feature work that was already in development, while at the same time still wanting it done by a previously set deadline.