Pluspunten
Makes an excellent first impression. The whole company appears very impressive, modern, progressive, and successful. The location is trendy and spacious (though incredibly noisy, see the cons). The owners are driven (Anton) and relaxed (Alex), and their mother is wonderful, and makes beautiful terrariums for everyone's desk. The job comes with many lifestyle benefits, such as fully stocked kitchens, gym membership (and 1-hour of paid gym time per week), yoga classes, and its location near the Tennerife ferry terminal was very convenient for me. Other positive reviews here brag about the learning budget, but in my experience this is pretty standard, and par for the course really. They have possibly the best induction process I've experienced. It's very structured, spaced out over a week, and makes a real effort to bring you up to speed on every important aspect of the business and what you'll need to know to do well there. They've also managed to hire a bunch of great people. Talented, lovely characters who care about what they do, and doing it the best they can.
Minpunten
Firstly, take most of the positive reviews here with a grain of salt: while I was at Rex, the CEO literally instructed people to write positive reviews to Glassdoors specifically to offset the many negative ones. Take into consideration that they are all from people who _currently work at Rex_. From what I've heard, this has happened _multiple times_. Read the other negative reviews. Pay attention. Do not fall for the trap of believing that "it won't happen to you" or "they're just saying that because they were fired/left/had a bad run-in". Like I said, there are many great people there, who, despite still being there, can see and relate strongly to all the issues in other reviews and this one, but for their own personal reasons, aren't in a position to leave yet. With that said, I'm not going to rehash what most other reviewers have said: it's all true but it's been said many times better than I could say it. Instead I'm going to present some of the nuance that has been glossed over: The management is a cult. What they truly value, is aggreable, complacent lackeys who suck up to them daily. Everything they do is in service to creating and maintaining the illusion that they are geniuses who should be worshipped and followed. As soon as you give the slightest impression that you don't think they know everything, you'll see the smiles dispappear and you'll know your days in the cult are numbered. And if you go so far as to step out of line, you'll probably be yelled at, insulted, and degraded publicly. Some of the positive reviews here mention the need to "raise issues with management if you're unhappy". That's pretty funny. Raising an issue with management is totally ok and encouraged, provided your issue isn't even remotely with management themselves or any decision or direction they've made. In fact, they want your feedback *so much* you are *required* to give it every week! You have to complete a "15/5" (15 mins to write, 5 mins to read) email to the owners directly every week telling them about your week. If, in that email, you perhaps mention that some things might be done better, or that some things aren't turning out the way they wanted for whatever valid reason, you can expect your time to be limited. Because they don't want to hear the truth. The truth is uncomfortable and confronting. They want to hear how great they are and how you're working super hard to implement their grand visions. The truth is that Rex is failing and they don't know how to grow a successful software company. They've never turned a profit, and 90% of their "real" income comes from a product that is losing market share year-on-year to competitors that actually respond to customer needs and market evolution. To build the illusion that feeds their egos, they thus rely entirely on venture capital, which they blow on attempting to project the appearance of being the Premier software startup in Brisbane. Where they DO skimp is on the hidden stuff: staff salaries. They almost exclusively hire very young people, paying them well below market rates (all those "benefits" actually come out of your salary, and then some). Young people are easy to manipulate into believing that there aren't any better opportunities out there (there are), that the owners know what they are doing (they don't), and that the horribly abusive management and incredibly high staff turnover they have is normal (it isn't). This also means that there are "senior" staff there who are in their low 20's, with all the emotional, social, and cognitive maturity that comes with being that young... In their arrogance of their own superiority, they make the same mistakes project-after-project: they assume they know everything, do almost no meaningful market research, design their product in isolation, pass it over to engineering to develop it as though it is already a perfect blueprint for success, then release it into the world, waiting for the money to starting flooding in. Of course, the designs are never complete or without massive flaws, so when they hit engineering, they end up taking about 10x longer to build with constant "throwing things over the wall" back and forth until it eventually works. And since the business case was never properly developed, it ends up not even being worth developing in the first place. All this because of hubris: The owners (Anton in particular, but not in isolation) think they know better than everyone else in the world, so they do everything their own way, in complete opposition to best practices, and then blame everyone else when things don't work out like their perfect vision demanded. As for the noise: the office is located above a gym, which is constantly pumping incredibly loud music punctuated by the grunts and shouts of the members. When the sales team make a sale, they blast obnoxious and repetitious music for AGES, and expect everyone to cheer and clap. This all gets old almost immediately, and really interferes with your ability to think and discuss work with colleagues.