Marqeta

The list of 'pros' is really long, actually.

The basic ones are:

• Our office is beautiful, wonderfully situated, easily accessible and stocked with tasty amenities.
• Our benefits package(s) seem reasonably good (6% 401k match, standard array of insurance options, (including pet insurance through Trupanion, lol), three weekly catered meals, etc.).
• An enjoyable social aspect, including events, happy hours, team outings, and a broad array of interest-specific Slack channels.
• A good range of coworker diversity (disclaimer: diversity can always be better) re: age, experience and history range, family-status, etc.

The ones which hold more weight are:

• Working with great engineers and great managers.
• Marqeta is a company of consequence. Every day when I come in, I'm working on things which are blazing the way forward for how the larger payments industry operates.
• We have, among the tech org, a cooperative environment.
• I am never bored. Every day has new and exciting challenges to work on.
• I feel very satisfied with, and supported in, my professional growth at Marqeta. We are supported in learning new skills, approaching problems in new ways, learning new languages.

• Like many other tech companies, I feel like our hiring process is rough on our applicants as well as on our employees.

• Engineering objectives are too driven by the business side. While I feel like my work-life-balance is typically pretty good, I am, and the tech-org generally is, feeling increasing pressure to output.

• I've heard the mantra 'Slow down to speed up' for years. I'd love to see that actually put into practice. I know we have the need to expand (now of all times is understandably important), but we have to foster our core, both employees and our products. Expansion will always be a pressure. So will shoring up our edges.

• Our hiring process is frustrating, from both the inside and out. We shouldn't compromise our standards, but we do need to fix the experience and expectations. -- We are growing in every direction. We NEED to hire like it.