Pros: My co-workers were great: kind, smart, and hard-working. A clean code-base that hasn't yet had time to accumulate cruft. A young and dynamic company that could be on its way to #1 in the US Sportsbook and online gambling market. Top-notch business leadership.

Cons: FBG has copied Amazon's policy of giving managers a quota of 10% of their reports that should be "missing expectations". So my manager (who has never been a Software Engineer) was monitoring every individual's performance to be able to decide who had to be "missing expectations". My team was high performing and almost always finished our projects early. Of course, the evaluation metric my manager used is simplistic and easy to game; if you know what's going on! In my case, the metric seemed to be "Jira points" finished. So people who cut corners to go faster are rewarded, and people who are thorough are penalized. As one successful staff engineer told me after I decided to leave: "If the solution isn't *obviously* terrible; I go for it!" Worst of all, I did not receive any feedback or guidance from my manager until it was too late. I was just told "you're missing expectations"; but I couldn't do anything about it! This happened to me on both of my performance evaluations! After a miserable year at FBG, I decided to make it easier on everyone and chose a "voluntary" exit program, which will give me back my happiness.

Pros: Whenever people ask me what I like about working at Fanatics during interviews and such, I have a ready answer: the company cares about its people. For a short period, I was unhappy with my role and the team I was on. I voiced that, and they found me something that was a better fit, rather than saying "tough beans, do it or find something else." Also, we have lots of employees in Florida. During the recent hurricanes, the message to those employees was "take care of yourself and your family, and take care of work when those are done." I've never had another job where I really felt like my bosses had my best interest in mind. I feel like, in general, in the modern day, you can't. I do here. They're looking for opportunities to help me grow and advance in my career. From a tech perspective, it's an exciting time to be here as it feels like a startup, but we're not worried about where our next round of funding is coming from. The work culture is very much "get your work done." The expectation is 40 hrs/wk, and I've literally had a manager say "you should take more time off." There's a real understanding here that people do their best work when they're not burnt out. Finally, we have several layers of management, but it feels very flat. The CTO will book 1-1s with you if you need/want it. The culture, at least in the tech department, is great in that way.

Cons: On the flip side of that positive note, it sometimes feels like a startup combined with a bureaucracy. There are lots of tools we have to use because a higher up says so, but those teams are agile and the tools are not fully developed, etc.

Pros: Smart engineers and a fun overall vibe make it great to be part of the sports industry. The offices provide free food and are really nice.

Cons: Proceed with caution: The culture can be very toxic. Leadership is insincere. Nepotism is a major issue. Layoffs are common in tech, but these seriously raise eyebrows. Speaking up or being different makes you a target.