Chegg

You get a somewhat decent free lunch.

Office is nice and clean with good amenities.

Human Resources does a good job of onboarding.

If you are burnt out as an Engineer, it's an easy place to cruise (see cons below).

If you are a highly driven, capable, and self-motivated engineer, you will not find yourself working in teams with like-minded individuals.

You will not build world-class software.

Most of existing software/infrastructure was very poorly designed and implemented. There is a ton of legacy already. The company is working towards improving this, but...

Little to no interaction with product management. You will not learn about the domain at all, beyond a 1-hour meet and greet thrown your way every once in a while.

No incentives are in place to maintain motivation.

1. To build a world-class engineering organization, you need to put incentives in place to attract and keep world-class talent. A near-market salary is not enough, and the options being offered are not enough.

2. Ensure that people have titles reflective of their actual capabilities. There is nothing worse than working with people less capable than yourself in positions much higher within the organization.

3. Promote engineers who get work done, no matter the cost. There is a tendency to hire or promote people who talk the talk but never, or can't, walk the walk. World-class organizations are built by people who roll up their sleeves and get the work done.

4. Ensure that only high-quality candidates get through the door for on-site interviews, especially if they are interviewing for senior positions.

5. Ensure that the people who do the work and generate the ideas are the same people who present those ideas and get recognition for their hard work. There is nothing more demoralizing than pouring blood, sweat, and tears into something and having someone else be recognized for it.

6. Improve the software development process. There is a significant lack of true software product management (not visionaries) and QA standards.

7. Ensure that managers hold all team members to equal standards, and those in senior positions to higher standards still.

8. Consider promoting the hard workers to leadership or management roles within the organization. This will set an example for hard work.

9. Provide a clear path to promotion within the company. Not once was it ever made clear to me what opportunities existed within the organization.

10. Consider managed solutions instead of building everything from scratch.

11. Don't try to use every technology under the sun. In the business you are in, you should be innovating within the domain, not the technology. It's perfectly reasonable to be several versions behind the latest and greatest. It's also perfectly reasonable not to be using the latest technology that you don't really understand yet. Wait until you build expertise around those technologies before jumping the gun.