Talented people are fuel, not assets.
Pros
Great if you really need the money. It's a job.
Cons
Leadership lies. Not exaggerates, not misremembers — lies. Verbal commitments are made strategically to extract effort and then denied when it's time to deliver. I was verbally promised $160k after 90 days. When I asked about it, they said they'd never heard of it. I helped secure a six figure investment for this company. They could have honored the compensation they promised me and still had budget left over. They chose not to. The culture is built on manufactured urgency and exploitation. I worked weekends. I worked 3am nights. I ground through it because leadership promised protected time off over the holidays. That promise evaporated. The contacts and demands kept coming through the break anyway, without acknowledgment, without apology. They contacted me on my daughter's birthday. Not an emergency. Not a crisis. Just the usual disregard for the boundaries of basic human decency. They will suck your soul from you. When I got sick, after months of that grind, I was written up. Not supported. Written up. The micromanagement is constant and demoralizing. You will be monitored, questioned, and second-guessed while simultaneously being expected to work autonomously at a senior level. There is no consistency, only control. The company's approach to hiring is predatory by design. The internal philosophy, stated openly, is to hire for a few months and discard. It does not matter how senior your role is, how many leadership meetings you sat in, or how integral you were to the company's direction and success. They will take everything you build, everything you help them accomplish, and throw you away when it's convenient. Everyone is expendable. Then they start the cycle over with someone new. This is not a struggling startup finding its footing. This is a pattern.
