Pros

- Great people, though there are less and less people remaining - Fun projects, some very challenging engineering and social (in-world) problems to solve - History of great alumni and of breaking new ground - A better than average kitchen and refreshments - Pretty solid resume building buzzword compliant technology ( C++, Python, Netezza, CEP, large scale MySQL, big data challenges with a recent sprinkling of Hadoop and MongoDB) - If you have a family, and don't want to put in startup hours, this is a great gig - great SF location ( other office locations may vary) - I loved working at Linden Lab until ....

Cons

... I got too frustrated and couldn't take it any more - Management scared to try and tackle big engineering challenges, sticking to tiny iterative changes and expecting to "move the needle" with tiny often silly "improvements" (and the charts never change from the slow sad decline despite management desiring them to) - Inability to address engineering technical debt - management is simply scared of it - Fundamental usability issues with the main product remain unresolved for years, aggravating users (see the many blogs about Second Life and Linden Lab) - In an era where computing is moving to delivery of content and gaming to mobile devices, Linden Lab hopes to continue harvesting their only source of revenue (Second Life) while making nominal changes for the fewer and fewer in-world residents who can run Second Life and want to stick around - A culture war is occurring, where the old culture is being erradicated and a new vacuos one is put in place - Senior Management is a no show, literally, and does not want any input from the staff, believing that any input from longterm employees is at best an annoyance and at worse grounds for leading employees to the door - only newly hired employees can be trusted. - New middle and senior management constantly come and go without listening to longtime employees who understand the product and have seen the same mistakes made over and over again - A sadly squandered opportunity to grow the main product line, Second Life, with cloud delivery or innovative mobile enhancements - while investing in pet experiments that will likely not replace the current revenue stream as it deteriorates, or even be monetizable at all