Interesting work & great impact w/ some growing pains - Anonymous employee Pilot44 Labs Employee Review

The biggest pros for Pilot44 are its people, its clients, and its opportunities, especially for younger folks. The team is unique with wide experiences and perspectives and really smart. I was constantly impressed by not only the work my colleagues delivered but also the knowledge they would share in passing conversations or lunch-&-learns and the hobbies or side businesses people ran on the side. Lastly and most importantly, the team is genuinely kind to one another - willing to help, curious about each other's lives, and always maintaining respect during challenging discourse. Furthermore, the client roster is comprised of some of the most reputable companies in the world. If you have an interest in CPG, you'll be hard-pressed to find a stronger set of logos at a company of similar size. These contribute an amazing opportunities, especially for young people. Because the team is small and scrappy, junior employees are relied upon to make a real impact quickly. Within weeks you can be presenting to senior folks at some of the largest brands in the world. For younger people who want to learn by doing, Pilot44 offers tons of opportunities to dive head first into the deep end. The employees that take advantage of this develop legitimate strategic chops quickly while practicing professional communication & storytelling and getting exposure to a wide range of corporate functions, technologies, and industries.

As a service provider, Pilot44 has had its growing pains from prioritizing client work over internal management. The company runs pretty lean by design, and the number of people working on the business (vs. on client work) is fairly limited (although improving significantly in the last 1-2 years). Therefore, this can be a challenging place to work for people who are more passive about their needs as employees. Founders / executives genuinely do care about their people; apathy is not the issue. I think due to running lean and usually being in a growth state, the general expectation is for employees to speak up if they are unsatisfied or if there are issues within the company.

You'll learn to be incredibly independent. That's genuinely the only good thing.

The onboarding was basically nonexistent — I showed up day one, got a laptop, and then existed in this void where nobody explained how anything actually works or what I was supposed to be doing. There's no training, no structured materials, nothing, which is wild for a professional company. I spent weeks digging through old Slack messages just trying to figure out what was expected of me, and by the time I had any direction I was already way behind. Honestly, five minutes of actual guidance from someone would've changed everything about my experience here. It's hard to succeed when nobody tells you what success even looks like.