Pros
Working at Shogun has been an amazing opportunity for me both professionally and personally. Shogun is a fully remote company with an amazing management team. There are many types of remote companies. The spectrum ranges from companies that allow employees to work from home a few days a week to companies that have no central office and employees scattered around the world. Shogun is the latter. There are a few benefits to this. - Minimal meetings (It's hard to schedule a time to meet with everyone, so most communication is done over Slack and email. You're trusted to keep everyone informed and to get stuff done. I currently have 1 30-minute meeting a week) - Smart coworkers (Not being limited to hiring in a single, or a few geographical locations, coupled with competitive compensation means that the company can hire the best and brightest, no matter where they are. The best part, you get to work with those people) - Work from where you want, and when you want (The company has no set or required overlapping hours. The flexibility removes the stress of having to commute or be in the office at a certain time and allows you to pursue other personal goals you may have. I've personally used this opportunity to move to Taiwan to start learning Mandarin. Something I never could have done without the flexibility at this company) Shogun is a startup. As of this writing, there are less than 30 employees and only 11 engineers. Because of that, everyone has a large amount of responsibility and say in how projects are completed and how the company operates. It's a fast paced environment, but if you enjoy learning and executing quickly, it's an exciting place to work. Typically, the concern about working at a startup is job stability. Shogun is a minority among startups in that it is profitable and that management is extremely transparent about where the company stands. The company's revenue, burn rate, run rate, etc. are made available to all employees. A comforting thing to see, especially when you've had friends at startups that have shutdown overnight. Management has been some of the the best I've worked with so far. I have monthly meetings with my direct manager as well as the CEO once a month. As the company is quickly growing (both revenue and team), there are natural growing pains. However, management is always asking for feedback and improving all aspects of the company. On top of that, I truly believe that the founders of this company want to help their employees achieve their goals, whatever they may be. While I was going through the interview process, I was transparent about the fact that I am interested in starting my own company and that I would be working on side projects. If I were hired, I couldn't confidently say that I would be at the company in two years, or even one year if the right opportunity arose. Both founders' responses were offers to provide mentorship, review slide decks, and allow me to access to their networks. I couldn't have asked for a better response.
Cons
Remote work isn't for everyone. Going to an office every day can help you start your day, force you to create a routine, and provide a social environment. Once you become remote, all these things you naturally take for granted take extra effort. If you've never worked remotely before, there's definitely an adjustment period. Earlier I mentioned that, because Shogun is a growing, each employee has a large amount of responsibility. There's always another feature to build and bugs to fix. On top of that, as the team grows, processes are always changing. If you don't mind working in a fast paced environment and embrace the growing pains that any growing startup goes through, then this isn't a con at all. However, I am aware that this type of work environment is not appealing to everyone.
