Pros
Hugely ambitious, and satisfying projects to work on. Employees are trusted with responsibility to get their projects over the line. Technical ideas and concerns are always listened to. Talented, hard-working coworkers. Lucrative equity scheme (for those fortunate enough to be noticed). Generally a great place to work, you won’t be falling asleep at your desk. Despite the feedback points below, I would still recommend to a friend if they were looking for something more than the usual 9-5.
Cons
Pay is absolutely not in line with the “industry standard” claimed by management - especially in this hot job market. There should be more emphasis on keeping current employees happy, and making the remuneration more lucrative for potential new hires (from NZ and abroad). Engineering programs often have extremely ambitious timelines, and employees are often working many projects in parallel. Most teams are understaffed, so working longer than your contracted hours is often necessary to get projects over the line. This can be exausting and sometimes leads to shortcuts which affects the quality of the end product. There is no overtime pay for salaried workers, even though working extra hours is commonplace. During the recent culture survey it was proudly announced “around 20% of the workforce received a promotion last year”. To many, this translated to: “on average, you can expect to be promoted every 5 years”.