Pros
- Fully remote work environment, which provided flexibility and convenience. - Opportunity to work with modern technologies such as TypeScript (React/Node) and AWS. - Exposure to the cannabis industry offered a unique learning experience, with knowledge and skills that can translate well to other industries and support long-term career growth.
Cons
- There was effectively no company culture. It did not feel like a collaborative or supportive team environment, with little effort made to build genuine connection, camaraderie, or a sense of belonging among coworkers. - Leadership showed little appreciation for the engineers who helped build the company, even after major releases and meaningful contributions. - I experienced unprofessional behavior from members of leadership that created a disrespectful and uncomfortable work environment. - There was a constant sense of instability, with ongoing concern about layoffs and cost-cutting measures affecting engineering roles. - On-call responsibilities and operational burden were unevenly distributed, which created unnecessary strain on a small number of developers. - Deadlines were frequently unrealistic, often driven by external commitments made before requirements were properly defined or enough development time was allocated. - The company became overly reliant on AI-generated solutions, which often resulted in broken, incomplete implementations that were difficult to scale and maintain. - Compensation and benefits felt underwhelming. Stock options were presented as if they were a meaningful part of compensation, despite limited practical value in a private company and the requirement for employees to pay to exercise them. There was also no 401(k) matching, no bonuses, only basic medical and dental coverage, and few meaningful additional benefits. “Unlimited PTO” did not feel like a true benefit in practice and often seemed to discourage taking adequate time off, which contributed to burnout. - The software was frequently buggy, and there was little long-term product or technical planning. Features were often rushed out, shipped in an unstable state, and then repeatedly patched instead of being thoughtfully designed and built. Temporary prototypes or proof-of-concept work also too often became long-term production solutions without proper revisiting or refinement.