Pros: Arista has an amazing work culture. The management and peer group are amazing and friendly, and they'll always help you when in need. You are the owner of your project, and you will be given a lot of responsibility to handle the project.

Cons: The career growth is less as there is a flat hierarchy. The review process is not really transparent.

Pros: Learned all about networking (including reading The Switch Book), had a valuable programming experience, and contributed to the company. The employees were very intelligent and eager to shed knowledge on every area. Unlike my internship the following summer, there was an expert on every part of the codebase.

Cons: I had to pay for my own lunch at the cafeteria. That is it. Everything else was awesome, and the cafeteria food was delicious.

Pros: Quality is number 1. If there is a bug, that gets fixed over new code. Refactoring is encouraged. Manager BS is basically non-existent. Agile is not forced on us, and teams / individuals operate independently (ironically more agile than SCRUM or whatever). Engineering managers are hired only from within, so managers are all talented software engineers. Internal review process is algorithmic, and managers don't get to play favorites (at least, compared to other companies). The CTO Ken Duda is really great. The engineering org, and largely the company as a whole, is dependent on his great vision and his devotion to quality. In general, the work is not demanding. It's a best effort kind of place. Those who want to excel can, but there is no constant drive to improve. Customer support is first class - TAC are a joy to work with.

Cons: Growing pains have led to less focused management and a more chaotic environment. A lack of product managers means direction is sometimes not clear. While the review process is algorithmic, it's still very opaque. Specifically, pay scales are non-existent, and the diversity of compensation seems wide. Four-year RSU vesting is infrequent, and it means that they don't dollar-cost average the total compensation. This can vary a lot. Very little attention is paid to external benefits. Paternity leave, for example, is the legal minimum. Compensation is great and all, but there is more to life than dollars in the bank. The HR department does not make active attempts to improve things; all improvements I know of come from the engineering organization pushing for them. Leadership, excluding engineering, seems to make decisions that are at odds with the company "values," like "Do the right thing." They often dodge difficult questions.