Arista Networks

Very talented software team. People are motivated by themselves and by the management as well to take the time to write tools and automate their tasks. Good tooling leads to more productivity and less mundane tasks.

Great culture - "do the right thing" is the mantra. Rarely compromise quality over timelines. Very good culture of writing automated unit tests and end-to-end product tests. This is not new for web companies but is certainly rare in the networking industry.

CTO is an inspiration. Inspires and cultivates the culture, for example by staying all night for the hackathon and coding up a great project.

Peer review system provides a fair way to rank peers and provide feedback. It also removes the need to please your managers.

Managers are mostly required to do software project management and rarely need to do the task of people management.

Some growing pains, slight decline in hiring standards as compared to a few years ago. Also, some bad apples have stuck around forever. Not sure how.

No free lunches, massages, etc. Very average benefits.

Does not have a "cool" tag attached to it.

Peer review system's lack of transparency may upset people, especially those not benefiting from it.

Not many people are happy with their compensation (excluding pre-IPO stock options).

Keep up the good work; the distractions will pass.

The need to maintain quality is paramount. Listen closely to engineers complaining about where quality is suffering and try to address the root cause. Few people speak up, so hear them out carefully and try not to dismiss their concerns. After all, quality is one of the main reasons for the company's success.