CrowdStrike

Crowdstrike, bar none, is the leader in EDR. They focus on making computer abnormalities (from malware, hackers, etc.) visible and detectable, preventing them from being hidden from a user.

The company acts like they want to win the market and is growing like crazy to get there. Their cloud solution is a cash cow, with numerous ways to make money.

The engineers are disciplined and have a pretty good programming process. This should be expected in the security space, but sadly it may not be. I've been at security companies that cut corners in the name of deadlines.

They are pretty well organized, being a geographically dispersed company.

Finally, all new employees take a business course on Crowdstrike's products. The lectures are typically done by VPs and high-level engineers, and that is a very super-cool, novel "newbie training" idea. You do feel like you understand the security market more afterward.

For starters, Crowdstrike's development environment is a hodge-podge set of home-grown development tools, debuggers, test frameworks, VMs, and programming languages that frankly, I'm sometimes surprised it even works at all. You think you'll be able to rely on, say, PyCharm IDE's debugger to help you debug Python code? Nope. You'll start questioning yourself if it's worth growing your work experience in this home-grown tool environment over, say, a more industry-standard experience; gaining experience writing Java code with Jetbrains IntelliJ and using JUnit to test. Many reqs at Crowdstrike can say "C++ experience needed," but you may rarely do any C++ development and instead use a home-grown modeling language. This all can be very frustrating, as the ramp-up curve is very steep, and you cannot simply do things like go on the internet and take a programming course to accelerate your ramp-up. You really need work time and not Google to learn things. Pray that you have a manager who really understands this and is good about ramping up people the right way, which is slowly.

Second, I'm not sure where managers/leadership gets the idea that, say, a Linux expert can be successful at Windows development tasks. They may label you as a "Linux resource," but in practice, it can prove otherwise. It happens more than you think.

Another con is the company tends to still operate like a startup. At a 4,000+ employee, post-IPO company, they need to start acting more maturely about this. Let's get real: when COVID is over and people can leave their homes to go and do stuff (vacations, movies, jazz shows, etc.), the company will not get as many work hours out of their employees. Crowdstrike better adjust for that and reset expectations.

Don't think when you are told your bonus number in your offer letter you are going to get it. More often than not, it's actually a bit harder to achieve. I've been at companies where if you work hard and management knows you at least tried and put in the effort to make a deadline, you'll get, say, a quarterly bonus. Not here.

There is a huge reliance on Slack for communication. If you are not a fan of Slack, like, huge-huge, so much so people tend to forget there exists an invention called email.

If there is going to be a downfall to Crowdstrike, it will be due to their home-grown tool/development environment locking the wheels of productivity when all the talent that developed those things as side projects leave the company, which could be sooner than you think after their IPO success.

Finally, here is a trade-off con/pro: Crowdstrike pays well, but are you really making more money? You will most likely work from home, and Crowdstrike will only pony up a laptop and monitor; the rest (desks, ergonomics, etc.) is on your dime. I don't believe you can write off those work-related things on your tax return. And see if things like your utility bills go up as a result of working remote.

My "recommendation to a friend" is really neutral. Crowdstrike is a leader in cybersecurity solutions utilizing the cloud, and you'll gain some great insight into modern cybersecurity. But remote work isn't for everyone. And Crowdstrike needs to temper down the startup mentality. And the home-grown tool/development situation isn't a great way to gain experience/expertise when you are looking for that next software engineering opportunity elsewhere.

If you're going to rely on home-grown tools and development environments, hire a solid staff whose sole purpose is making the tools/solutions the class of the industry so engineers and their schedules aren't so hampered by quirky, half-baked tools. It's a reason why engineers can be overworked with potential burnout when they have to work around tool issues in addition to their work. Work is hard enough at Crowdstrike.

Get a plan on how to carefully ramp up new employees so they don't get super frustrated with this environment. Allow engineers to go to external conferences to get in touch with industry tools/trades to bridge that "home-grown tool/development environment gap".

Next, leadership shouldn't be rewarded if engineers have this cyclic work cycle that, say, every third month, an engineering team is putting in 70 hours of work a week, including weekends. That's a failure to recognize and truly plan for all the tasks and risks at hand for a schedule for successful engineers and burnout. Crowdstrike needs to mature past a start-up culture, and PMs need to stop overcommitting dates on features and advertising that to customers.

Finally, take the gas slightly off the pedal on the schedule and give engineers a chance to breathe, take in what they are learning, and provide managers/leaders some breathing room to address issues and develop talent.