Pros: Generally, people are helpful. There are plenty of AI resources. It is good if you are happy feeling accomplishment from anything other than solving core engineering problems. You are happy working on small-size, low-risk, fast-delivery, and no-real-learning projects.

Cons: It is bad for career growth if you have a startup or midsize company mindset, expect autonomy, prefer a bottom-up style of initiative, or want to venture into anything complex. Management is not supportive and expects you to sell your proposal. There is some politics and a cult-type culture, with employees and PEs who choose to sideline you and give you criticism in reviews rather than to your face. The company is highly reactive to the market and urgency, and it is great at ignoring proactive, bottom-up advice.

Pros: - High opportunity for impact - Smart, talented, hard-working people (at least in Engineering, Product, and Design) - Growing company with promising business prospects - Big focus on culture in both hiring and the way the company is run

Cons: - Some churn and difficulty in teams outside of Engineering/Product, like Sales. - Classic startup work/life balance challenges. Because of the opportunity for impact and leadership, the team is full of people who are perfectly okay with 60+ hour work weeks. This can make you feel obligated to work a lot as well. - Work on the engineering team is pretty simple. There will probably be more interesting work to do in the future as the product and user-base matures, but most of the work being done right now is fairly simple. This is, of course, true at a lot of Silicon Valley companies and is not unique to Gusto. Nonetheless, for someone interested in technical growth (as opposed to managerial growth), it can seem limiting.

Pros: Good work-life balance and work culture.

Cons: No clear direction that the company wants to go in to increase revenue.