Grateful to have this experience
Pros
* Most people are really smart, friendly, and kind. They care not only about your professional development but also your personal well being. I think attitudes from leadership really fostered this. A lot of these people ended up being some of my closest friends. We'd like each other so much we'd also hang out on weekends and holidays. That has faded out though with the pandemic and rise in remote work. * My managers at Braze were great. Did not micromanage, helped me grow as an engineer, were there for me on a personal level. I trusted them and could come to them with any concerns I had. * Given the complex nature of the Braze product, as a SWE that means there's a lot to learn. While I did learn a lot during my tenure I still know there's more I could've learned and if I wanted to that would be facilitated either through different product work or even switching teams. That meant work that was challenging and so I was rarely bored. I rarely dreaded going to work. * I was encouraged to be a more well rounded engineer. Not only technically, but also in a product, design, collaborative, and opinionated sense. * Good work life balance. Even though we had 24/7 on call team rotation weeks I found it manageable. I think that is highly team dependent though. Was reminded to take my vacations days. Very flexible working hours if you had a doctor's appointment or something non-work related to do in the middle of the day as long as you were available during main work hours or gave the team a head's up. * Very lucky to have experienced the Braze IPO, not many companies go through that
Cons
* The product itself is not something most people are going to be passionate about but in engineering that was generally understood and we weren't necessarily forced to fake enthusiasm or adopt some cult-like mentality. The technically challenging problems the Braze product offered was motivation enough for us. * While most people were nice, over the years there were a few rude and condescending personalities to deal with. Eventually they either were fired or raged quit themselves due to their combative nature but the fact they were allowed to stay as long as they did (sometimes years) was troublesome, especially when some of them reached high positions in the company. * As Braze grew in size and remote work, this meant social bonds were weaker. For some people that's not a problem but for some new hires it could feel a bit isolating. I was lucky to have experienced Braze pre-pandemic when all engineers were in the NYC office daily