Pros
* I feel like the company has tried to provide everything one needs to do our best work, e.g. top-of-the-line hardware that we have opportunities to refresh. We don't have to think about spending time queueing up for lunch in the business district because the company allows us to order in and pays for it. * We offer the best health insurance for companies of its size (with only 20+ people in Singapore). * It's a collaborative environment while also allowing for blocks of time for quiet work; it's something engineers will appreciate. Also, some of the best engineers I've ever worked with. It's quite a fun bunch. * The company is very averse to meetings; we, including management, avoid them whenever possible. We encourage other means of syncing up. * A fierce drive to improve/extend the product to make it more useful, while retaining as much simplicity as possible. We say "no" to a lot of things we can do because of our focus and a recognition of how we want to best use our resources. * A lot of knowledge about how the product is built is documented and/or is in the process of being documented. The documentation is open to read. Engineers can read about decisions someone has made even though it's outside of the scope of their team. * At the time of writing, we operate on their own revenue. We worry less about job security due to a short runway provided solely by investors. * Managers (can) also contribute as individual contributors, albeit much less. We have a direct line to our managers. * Management focuses a lot on continuous improvement of the status quo, be it in terms of productivity or in terms of policy. We are often asked about how we can improve the way we work. * We are allowed some time to pay down some of the tech debt we incur. We can request more time depending on the scale/scope of the debt vs business concerns. * As an engineer, we can request and do have access to some great tools (with some constraints, e.g. how secure/compliant they are). * We use mostly mature technologies, so we're building on stable, well-understood technologies. We pick tools that are proven to work or experiment extensively to ensure that they do. We don't have to keep looking over our shoulder once they are in production.
Cons
* The company relies a lot on folks being self-starters/self-managers. We have a lot of opportunity to craft our own role and identify areas in which we want to and can contribute. It's inherent to the size of the company and how fast it wants to move. This might not work for everyone. * There's a lot of institutional knowledge to acquire. Mastery of the company's domain definitely takes a while, but the information is there either via the internal Stack Overflow or through conversations with seniors. It can be quite a learning journey. * The Singapore office is in a shophouse: a heritage building. While cool, the age does show in ways, e.g. with leaks.