Do not ignore the warning signs and your intuition
Pros
Developers are allowed to work from home one day a week after their probation period. Some developers get special treatment and get two days. I was able to attend a conference, which was nice. Some of the in-house tools are nice and save you time with some routine tasks.
Cons
The high-strung nature of the work environment at this company begins with the 45-hour work week. It's certainly unusual for a full-time position. Typically a full-time position at most companies is 40 hours per week. Occasional overtime is OK. It happens. But here overtime is mandatory. With that in mind, in the nine-hour work day, as a web developer, you are expected to dedicate 7 hours to pure programming. The other 2 hours are considered your unproductive time, which includes things like bathroom breaks, smoke breaks, and the like. There is a catch, though, and this is where it gets a bit unreasonable, to put it lightly. Things like meetings and activities associated with programming aren't counted toward your productive 7 hours. Things like reviewing documentation and tasks aren't counted either. You see where this is going. Unless you are willing to work even longer hours, you are not going to hit that 7 hour mark of pure development (i.e. typing on the keyboard) per day. Thus, you are going to be under-performing all the time. Additionally, the production support developers bear a heavy load at this company. They have to assist Quality Assurance staff as well as Business Analysts to an unacceptable degree, in my opinion. Developers are the only people who have a real measurable deliverable. So if the Business Analysts do a poor job and essentially delay development, it's the job of the developer to make everything right. This is another reason that you will find yourself under-performing, because you will have emergencies all the time. Emergencies occur frequently due to other staff members' poor performance, but, like stated before, the developer is in the spotlight and has to make it right. I think it's an unfair practice. There has been a very, very high turnover rate at this company, and there is a reason for that. The owners of this company come from the restaurant industry and are used to dealing with disposable labor. The same practice should not be applied to people with advanced degrees, who spent years in school honing their problem-solving and technology skills. It's expensive to find good professionals, but this company must think otherwise. It doesn't have much respect for intellectuals. In a way, it's a sweatshop, and if you are not willing to go along with it, then you are out.
