Pros: Amsterdam; it's really all about living here. Lunch. Work-life balance.

Cons: After the CTO (Bank) left, company culture has fallen hard. Incompetent people were promoted to Directors in management because smart people left the company and there was nobody senior enough to fill the void. Most of the Product Owners are incompetent with no real-world experience. Management subtly forces people without a future to become TLs, to do their dirty work. Most of the engineering teams are led by designers who haven't written any code in their life. Nowadays, even copywriters are leading engineering teams :) Flexible hours is a lie, as they will literally put your ratings to 4 (Partially Meets Expectations) or 5 (Needs Immediate Improvement) if you're late in just a few standups. Your technical expertise holds no value here. They don't need it, and they're very open about it. HR is completely useless and will only support management decisions. Advice to people: Be very, very, very careful about selecting your Team Lead; it can make all the difference. Some guidelines I used to tackle that: * Shouldn't be a designer/user-researcher/copywriter; they won't ever be able to understand your tasks. * Should be actively involved in coding (ask his/her teammates about it, not him/her). Check git logs. * Should've more working experience than you (check LinkedIn; if no good companies are there, it could be a bad sign). * Should've at least 5 years of corporate experience (don't count freelancing & self-entrepreneurship ventures). * If they talk too much random without getting to the point, it's a bad sign! * If they put too much stress on communication then engineering, it's a bad sign. * Should've empathy; find out how to judge that. This one's most important.

Pros: You can coast if you want to, and the results will be the same as if you work hard. Overtime is not common in the NL. There are nice people from all over the world.

Cons: This place has been running with an obsolete technology stack since forever (mid 2000s, since the company started in 1996?). But at least when the former CTO and CEO were there, there was a coherent strategy. Now the place has been taken over by several "mafias" that promote amongst themselves. It's a highly toxic environment where tech skills don't matter at all, only who you know, which egos you stroke, and how good you are at personal marketing. All the processes devised to reduce political biases are now reinforcing them, while mid and senior management hold "Ask Me Anything" sessions just to shrug it off and reassure everyone that everything is fine. It's impossible to learn any new skills which are transferable nor to build anything which is relevant. Spend too much time here and you'll get rusty and lose your employability. The only thing you'll learn or get good at is their own internal game. You might get a good run if you play it well, but forget doing it anywhere else unless you want to become a politician. It's a classic giant that became obsessed with itself and forgot about the outside world: customers, partners, or similar companies. Failures pile one after another across new initiatives, but there is no accountability. If you are part of the in-group, everything is considered learning. If you are out, though, don't even think about trying to speak some sense. The better you can do is try to get in. Graduate developers who join right after college are the best fit, as they don't know much about the broader market and quickly adapt to the ongoing craziness. If you had experience developing anything before at any average-to-good company, best to avoid.

Pros: Money is really good compared to the market.

Cons: People are really bad compared to the market.