Coursera

• Best culture in the valley. Everyone I've met here has been incredibly friendly, humble, super smart, and mission-oriented. Having worked at many places in the Valley, including FANG, with both "brogrammers" and antisocial engineers, one cannot take that for granted. I am good friends with many of my coworkers; we are often found chatting with each other in the kitchen about everything under the sun, and many people hang out with each other after hours. It feels like a family.

• High impact. As an individual contributor, you are working on major features from day one, and I have a lot of freedom to take ownership of the spec.

• Great work-life balance. You're trusted to get your work done, and your managers support you and care about you as a person, not just an employee. Flexible WFH Wednesdays. As an engineer, if we need to modify timelines, managers are generally understanding and will back you up instead of pressuring you.

• Great growth potential. The new CEO is pushing the company in a profitable direction with online degrees. There's a lot of momentum with both university and industry partnerships, and we are in great financial shape heading into the new year. I'm excited for the future growth of the company.

The reorg and promotion process could be handled better. The changes themselves were good, in my opinion, but there was a lack of transparency about why decisions were made, causing many engineers to leave.

Due to our current focus on profitability, many product roadmaps have become temporarily more partner-driven than learner-experience driven. I'm really hoping that management delivers on promises that once we get all these degrees going, we will refocus on the learning experience. After all, most of us are here for the mission.

Senior engineers are compensated competitively, especially given the current market and talent level of our team.

Do more to attract and retain experienced technical talent.

Be clearer about how our future direction will contribute to our mission, instead of vague promises.

Transparency is essential to happy employees.