Pluspunten
1. Working with some of the most intelligent and hard-working people I've ever met. It's inspirational working on an impactful product with such a great team. Makes the grind feel easier when everyone is pulling their own weight.
2. Transparency across a relatively flat org. Weekly all-hands meetings with leaders clearly communicating our recent accomplishments, highest priorities, current risks, and actions being taken to address these. I haven't experienced this level of transparency at any other company and it is truly amazing. Face time is also easy to come by - regularly eat lunch or chat with the founders (CEO, CTO) and other c-suite on a daily basis. Priorities are clear.
3. The product. Instrumental's software is awesome; it was developed by manufacturing experts with deep knowledge on the biggest problems in the field AND it really works. On top of that, we're rolling out highly advanced new capabilities every couple of months; the team is doing an incredible job of reacting extremely quickly to industry advances/customer needs. There are even more exciting things on the horizon... It's an easy product to sell and once customers integrate the platform into their workflows, they don't want to operate without it. There are challenges with any software product, but the company has really invested in a strategic engineering hiring plan over the past few months and it's made a huge difference in how fast we can move and what we can accomplish. A very exciting place to work!!
4. Clear opportunity for growth, managers will work with you on your growth plan and provide clear feedback on what you need to work on. If you're making clear progress and working hard, you likely will get a comp increase and/or title change on a ~yearly or so basis.
5. Incredible role models. I mentioned this in #1, but I have learned SO MUCH from the leaders in this company in terms of both soft skills and industry knowledge. Feels truly invaluable to learn from and work with these individuals every day.
6. Decent schedule flexibility. You will likely be working late evenings a few times a week due to our Asia operations, and will have to do the occasional weekend work, but overall have been very happy with schedule flexibility. Lots of parents work at the company and they're able to balance their work and childcare/other responsibilities decently, just need to keep your calendar up to date. On the GTM team, I'm typically traveling to customer sites a few days a month on average.
7. Culture is great. Lots of laughs with my coworkers, but everyone also knows how to be head-down as well. Excellent balance that I really appreciate.
8. LOVE the hybrid schedule. 3 days a week in office in Palo Alto on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I like going in on Mon/Fri because traffic isn't bad and we get free lunch on Friday, and it feels like an easy balance with having a wfh day in between office days. This one is huge for me.
9. The managers are so great. As mentioned above they will give clear feedback and help you with your growth plan. They do an excellent job of unblocking you whenever needed and will go to bat for you.
10. High ownership and high impact. Everyone is empowered to work smarter and make improvements to how we do things. Everyone's voice counts.
Minpunten
1. The grind is tough right now. The considerable growth we've seen in the past ~7 months is an amazing and exciting thing, but hiring isn't happening fast enough to support it. Everyone is stretched pretty thin. The company has made definite progress in this area over the past month or so, but primarily in certain verticals. I wouldn't recommend taking this job if you don't want to be working significantly more than 40 hrs per week (GTM team-specific, I'm averaging 50-60 hrs a week rn), but that's true of most start-ups.
2. Pay could be better for a software company in the bay area, but we'll get there. Happy with the benefits.
3. This isn't a con, but wanted to flag. Working at Instrumental (same goes for many start-ups) requires working in ambiguity. You will not be given all the answers on how to do things. There likely won't be an established process or set of rules to follow for many of your responsibilities. You will need to figure out how to do things on your own, using your own judgment, and be able to justify what you did and why. People are always happy to answer questions, but you need to be pretty self-sufficient or you will not succeed here. I love working in this type of environment, but it isn't for everyone.