Pros
Small company environment, lack of bureaucracy, informal atmosphere. Growing quickly. Neat technology.
Cons
Top mgmt keeps everything close to the vest. No feedback on doing a good job or bad job. And stays away from addressing performance issues. As a result, some people just coast. The CEO has favorites, and takes what they say as gospel. Lack of process or formalities, so project changes occur frequently without adjusting the deadline. Product specs don't exist. And if they do, they're so vague or incorrect that they're useless for product testing or sustaining. The lack of specs allows engineers to design what they want, only to be told later "It was never intended to work that way". In general, there's a great urgency to get going - but the result is that things have to be done twice or three times because the effort was kicked off in a premature, half-cocked manner. The company's growing size means the old small-tribe methods don't work anymore. But the tribal leaders don't see the problem. In this rebounding economy, turnover is increasing.