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Decent Balance, Poor Comp

Software Engineer
Former Employee
Worked at Carta for 2 years
May 24, 2023
Seattle, Washington
3.0
Doesn't RecommendNeutral OutlookNo CEO Opinion
Pros

Good work-life balance. Work, but don't have to work hard or late. Good brand. Decently smart coworkers. Lax hybrid policy; many employees don't go into the office regardless of the official policy.

Cons

Low compensation relative to the market.

"No negotiation policy" until they negotiate.

Feels like a large Fortune 500 corporation due to:

  • Not fun at all.
  • Cult-like orientation.

It adds little value.

Lack of focus on delivering useful products. Instead, many products are over-documented, overthought, and over-engineered, and pre-optimized before they even hit customers (if there are any).

Lots of talk, not enough failing fast.

Your experience hinges on what team you are on; teams vary widely across the org.

Fragmented codebases with fragmented teams. "Maintainership" frequently changes hands.

Non-decomposed monolith makes for painful release schedules and local dev processes.

There's typically only one blessed way to accomplish a thing.

Lack of freedom in execution due to infrastructure limitations.

Tons of staff engineers and a dedicated dev experience team, yet the dev experience is awful.

Advice to Management

Audit directors/managers and their roadmaps. It doesn't seem like there's any real focus on delivering useful products depending on the team.

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