Pros: Freedom and responsibility and working with smart, motivated, high-caliber people make for a great experience. The work environment is dynamic and unencumbered by rules and process. There are no slackers here.

Cons: The constant expectations of excellence can be stressful.

Pros: Netflix has nice, fancy offices in Los Gatos. They have good snacks. They pay a pretty high cash salary. You get to claim that you're in the movie business.

Cons: Netflix makes a big deal about their hiring policies. They claim that they regularly evaluate employee performance and let the lowest performers go. To me, this sounded great! In contrast to many other companies where lazy and incompetent people hang around for years, Netflix tried to retain only the best and brightest people. Unfortunately, that's not what it was like in reality. A week after I started at Netflix, the recruiter who hired me was unceremoniously dismissed. Then the tech support guy in our office was released. Then an engineer on my team. In each of these cases, it wasn't clear what these folks had done wrong. They had all been technically competent, friendly, and hard-working. This promoted a culture of fear where no one felt that their job was secure. It turns out that there were several things going on. Managers were given incentives to regularly purge employees. So, managers developed antagonistic relationships with employees. In most normal companies, a key responsibility of a manager is to defend their team in front of senior management. At Netflix, this just doesn't happen. Additionally, Netflix doesn't have adequate mechanisms for providing feedback and review to employees. (In the year I spent at Netflix, I didn't receive a single review, positive or negative.) Without a formal system for employee evaluation, managers resort to picking favorites: they hire in their friends and fire people who they aren't friends with. I saw this happen to many different people while I was at Netflix. It's allowable by law (everyone is an "at will" employee), but it does not lead Netflix to hire and retain the best people. Netflix has had the good fortune to be in an easy business. They moved early into online DVD rentals and have large cost advantages over potential rivals. Their competitors (Blockbuster, Walmart, etc.) took major missteps and were not really able to compete. Netflix doesn't have to be the best at anything they do: operations, marketing, movie recommendations, etc. They just have to be OK at these things to run a profitable business, and they are only OK at them.

Pros: The culture deck is very close to accurate. From my experience, few things have differed from the information available publicly. I was concerned that there would be a 'culture of fear' before I joined, but it has not been so. Exceptional senior management. They keep the company on course, share information freely, are incredibly knowledgeable, and open to answering any employee questions. I have never been more impressed with a senior management team. Comp and benefits are outstanding. I started about a year ago, and since then the company has increased my salary by over 50%. Having had recent, competitive offers, it is truly top-of-market pay. Good work-life balance and unlimited time off.

Cons: No formalized training or advancement. If you want to try out different teams or roles, this isn't the place. No long-term career objectives. Nearly every single engineer has the same title, so there are no career goals to work towards. This also means no promotions (unless you're in management). All engineering positions are based out of Los Gatos. If you live elsewhere in the Bay, commuting is a requirement.