Pros: There are still many good ICs, but management is turning over too fast to have any semblance of a culture. It is good if you are on a favored team or project by leadership, and otherwise you will just be blamed whenever those teams break things.

Cons: Leadership is enamored with AI buzzwords but doesn't really know how to adopt them effectively. Engineering culture has changed from being performance- and outcome-based to one of shameless self-promotion and pushing AI slop without any individual accountability for output quality. It's becoming a race for individuals to automate so they won't be the ones fired, rather than building AI tooling together. AI tools are the future, clearly, but engineering leadership is losing the plot.

Pros: Smart people, decent-sized challenges, and free food!

Cons: I joined at a time when Life360 was literally trying to "polish" the proverbial turd to ship it. There was a huge ramp in heads with a focus to sweep a ton of bugs under the carpet in the name of meeting artificial deadlines to ship and appear competent. Find yourself advocating on behalf of the customer for things that aren't part of your manager's vision, and you might as well see yourself to the door. It was absolutely one of the worst engineering experiences I've ever encountered.

Pros: Challenging projects, good compensation, and good collaboration.

Cons: Several projects at the same time, and a lot of multitasking.