Pros
Building UAV drones looks and sounds awesome. The VBAT is a tech marvel that is changing the world for the better. UAV's and drones have always been a passion of mine and it was so cool having a career in a field I was passionate about and seeing VBAT grow from humble beginnings.
Cons
From less than 50 employees when I joined, the company had a scrappy can do attitude and accomplished amazing feats with minimal resources. Now to close to 600 employees, Shield AI is now a corporate being, wealthy yes, but plagued with slow moving processes, endless meetings and almost nothing gets done. Management feels like they have a target on their back so they push their employees hard. This is enforced with mandatory 50hr workweek minimums with no overtime but a vague threat that time cards will be reviewed in performance evaluations. Management pushes unreasonable timelines crammed with useless feature additions that suck time and detract from the end result. Brining up or pushing back on the point that that what is being asked is pushing the project backwards gets you labeled as combative. I was told that my boss is right, even when he is not right, he is your boss, end of story. We had provided lunches at one point but they got taken away.