Pros: - Pretty good work/life balance for the industry. There is too much work, but it's generally acceptable to push the work instead of increasing hours. Vacation is respected. - Jr. devs learn quickly. - Business seems good.

Cons: - Deep-seated structural issues. - Most teams are overloaded. - Everyone is so overloaded it seems teams/people turn against each other at times, leading to a generally toxic environment. - Management undervalues opinions from outside hires. - Promotions are based on tenure, relationships, and continuity with the "Akuna" way. - Management decisions are usually reactive and short-sighted. - Politics galore.

Pros: * There are smart people. * There are interesting technical challenges. * The company is making money and increasing its market share. * Some people manage to have a semblance of work-life balance.

Cons: * There is a lot of politics and internal competition. * Management sometimes enables hostile behavior from senior/valuable employees, and there are certain people who are known for being... unpleasant. * High pressure and long hours are commonplace.

Pros: Many of the developers, engineers, and traders are very talented. There is an outward appearance of work-life balance and minimal stress, as compared to other firms.

Cons: I do not trust the leadership in this firm. There is a constant turnover of talent, a constant drive to recruit junior talent/interns/new grads with minimal or no experience, and no focus on a mentorship model, nor appreciation for what the senior talent brings to the table with their lessons learned, networks to tap into, and knowledge others can learn from. A January layoff removed people that were attempting to course-correct bad past software decisions, were strong engineers, and provided mentorship. The same folks laid off were then used as scapegoats to the remaining teams as to why performance was not at expectations. Firms lay off people all of the time. This layoff cycle seemed not only cold, but when combined with offers being rescinded, leaving developers without employment sometimes days before their start dates, I question the ethics of the leadership and HR. My faith in the firm’s direction has been completely lost. Understanding the way layoffs were conducted, I believe HR and senior leadership has little/no understanding nor respect for developers. By looking at previous comments, know that the abundance of comments that talk about the firm being so young and fresh is true, but that comes at a cost. You will not get the opportunity to learn, and you will be thrown into bad architectures to support. Some of the few and more senior folks in leadership positions are the cause of some of the bad architectures and performance unfortunately, but they are well-versed at playing the political game. Teams on average have 3-4 years of experience, inclusive of some of the C-suite in Chicago that have very little experience/no experience outside of the firm.