I'm relatively new, but I'm happy to be at Niantic
Pros
The effort put in to make the world of Niantic magic is kind of special. Especially with the joy people have for pokemon around the office and on desks, and seeing large groups of people go nearly daily to do raids in Pokemon Go, to introduce people to the world of Ingress and secretly form plans against the other Ingress faction, to really get to know the players of Niantic games because it feels as if they are being made for the people that make it. The teams are still small so everyone ends up with a lot of responsibility and feeling a part of the team, even when you work with people that have been around since the start.
Cons
The amount of people responsible for some large task is sometimes 1. It is the downside of the teams being small and it can lead to some very focused moments of stress or crunch that is the responsibility of the individual to identify and hopefully spread out if there is anyone who is not already in that situation with a different task. There was monetary compensation but no actual help in moving to work for Niantic. This bothered me but I'm not sure how much of a greater issues this would be. There is some disorganization in the way things get done that has not grown yet to match where the company wants to be. While this is getting better, it worries me how many mistakes could be avoided (but then again, hindsight is 20/20).
