Pros: Having worked at Braze for many years, I am constantly in awe of what a caring, engaged, and intelligent group of people we work with. Beautiful people are thriving, doing quality work building up the company, each other, and ourselves in an environment where we’re respected and valued - across every role and office, from the CEO (hi bill) to the employee managing the mailroom (what’s up obby) and everybody in between. What’s most amazed me is how any time I experience any inevitable friction with a coworker, it is always handled in such a compassionate way, honoring each of our individual truths while also getting to the shared truth between us and finding practical and productive next steps. Everywhere you turn in this company you will find a rich and open heart with a sharp and solid mind attached, across sales, marketing, success, support, growth, legal, finance, facilities, people, product, and engineering. Pre-COVID, and I’m sure some day soon again, our offices were pleasant and comfortable spaces with catered lunches, snacks, and drinks on tap, across offices in New York, San Francisco, Singapore, and Chicago. Since COVID, the company has been so compassionate and flexible to each person’s individual needs as we’ve all navigated this year. I have had a few new coworkers join my team personally, and while I can’t wait to be able to raise a glass to them in person, I feel I know them as teammates and that we work together every day far more strongly than I would have expected possible from a purely virtual experience. Nothing can replace the lively social atmosphere that pervaded our offices pre-pandemic, but the company has done good work to keep us all connected with regular virtual social and wellness events. The product and client list speak for themselves, as do the desiccated husks of companies that seemed like competitors a few years ago. The growth curve of the business is just ridiculous and that’s about all I’ll say about that here. The future is bright.

Cons: Being part of a fast-growing company carries with it a lot of change. Processes and people are evolving rapidly, and areas of responsibility may move or grow over time and tracking it can be difficult.

Pros: * Most people are really smart, friendly, and kind. They care not only about your professional development but also your personal well-being. I think attitudes from leadership really fostered this. A lot of these people ended up being some of my closest friends. We'd like each other so much we'd also hang out on weekends and holidays. That has faded out though with the pandemic and rise in remote work. * My managers at Braze were great. Did not micromanage, helped me grow as an engineer, were there for me on a personal level. I trusted them and could come to them with any concerns I had. * Given the complex nature of the Braze product, as a SWE that means there's a lot to learn. While I did learn a lot during my tenure I still know there's more I could've learned and if I wanted to that would be facilitated either through different product work or even switching teams. That meant work that was challenging and so I was rarely bored. I rarely dreaded going to work. * I was encouraged to be a more well-rounded engineer. Not only technically, but also in a product, design, collaborative, and opinionated sense. * Good work-life balance. Even though we had 24/7 on call team rotation weeks I found it manageable. I think that is highly team dependent though. Was reminded to take my vacations days. Very flexible working hours if you had a doctor's appointment or something non-work related to do in the middle of the day as long as you were available during main work hours or gave the team a head's up. * Very lucky to have experienced the Braze IPO, not many companies go through that

Cons: * The product itself is not something most people are going to be passionate about but in engineering that was generally understood and we weren't necessarily forced to fake enthusiasm or adopt some cult-like mentality. The technically challenging problems the Braze product offered was motivation enough for us. * While most people were nice, over the years there were a few rude and condescending personalities to deal with. Eventually they either were fired or raged quit themselves due to their combative nature but the fact they were allowed to stay as long as they did (sometimes years) was troublesome, especially when some of them reached high positions in the company. * As Braze grew in size and remote work, this meant social bonds were weaker. For some people that's not a problem but for some new hires it could feel a bit isolating. I was lucky to have experienced Braze pre-pandemic when all engineers were in the NYC office daily

Pros: * Very smart coworkers who care a lot about our customers and product * Engineering leadership is dialed in and active in day-to-day * Good engineering practices and a desire to improve developer experience * We work with big customers everyone knows

Cons: * Stock price seems stuck * Customers use the product in unexpected ways that create support burdens. This varies by team.