Pros: If you want to pretend and do good to sell what you are doing, it's the right place. Or if you have a friend who's in the leadership team.

Cons: - Work hard to get close to the leadership team and get awarded. - If you want to work with people who don't have any empathy, it's the right place. - People are getting made redundant just before Christmas, and the leadership team is still pretending all is good. Seriously? - Are you a close friend with the CTO? Great, you will get new pillar leadership. - They are leaders who have changed teams and pillars a few times. They obviously failed, they had a lot of people made redundant, but they are still there and even getting rewarded for this. - Lower-level managers have zero power; they have to follow what they are told. - It depends on which team you work in. In some teams, it's three days mandatory; in some, it's not. They can't control this; it's so unfair.

Pros: Challenging tech stack. Good place to learn new things. A lot of unrelated work.

Cons: Chaotic at times, long hours, stressful, mismanaged. The direction Checkout is taking is sinister. They started up as a fun start-up, but now they're a soulless corporation that invests a lot in people governance and policing, and they are dismantling anything that used to be worth staying for. They have published a new NDA that no one wants to touch, so they employ dishonest tactics to twist people's arms to sign it. New starters will no doubt won't have a choice, but I ask new starters to carefully read it and decide if it's worth starting a job there with that eternal binding agreement over their heads. They ask new starters, who have been in the company for less than one week, to come here and place 5-star reviews before they've even finished their first week inductions. I wouldn't trust any review in here based on how I see them push for people to come and write something positive. They also started enforcing very strict rules about work, banning remote work and becoming more ruthless about it. They are also unable to make any exceptions, no matter how sensible your circumstances. The HR department is run by bots, and I can confidently call them that because they failed the Turing test. They are unable to understand the content of your email and send out automated replies, often with irrelevant legal text. I hope no one will ever need their mercy for anything, because they won't find it. Those bots are incapable of any sympathy or emotion. They also employ people to monitor emails and Slack conversations. Hard work is not rewarded. I regret working long hours, weekends, and nights. I regret winning a hackathon, which meant 3 days and 3 nights of hard voluntary work. The award was a ten-pound ebook voucher from Amazon, and we never got to see the award because they suddenly fired the delivery manager who was supposed to send it. Speaking of that, they often change their minds and fire lots of people in one go. While I was there, they fired all of the delivery managers and a lot of QAs with very short notice. I can sense they're in a panic, as they grew too fast and are struggling to adjust.

Pros: Some good benefits, like free lunch. Good compensation.

Cons: This is not a merit-based company. Hard work and results go unnoticed, while promotions and rewards go to those who are part of the CTO’s inner circle. If you’re not in that circle, don’t expect recognition no matter how much effort you put in. The culture is built on favoritism and politics. Advancement has nothing to do with performance and everything to do with how well you flatter leadership. It’s a tail-wagging contest, not a workplace that values talent. Communication is practically non-existent. Major decisions that affect the whole team are made in secret and dumped on everyone after the fact. There’s always a hidden agenda, and employees are left guessing instead of being kept informed. Always. If you’re looking for a place where your skills and contributions are valued, this is not it. Unless you enjoy playing office politics and pleasing the right people, you’ll find this environment toxic and demotivating.