Netflix

Think of the people you've worked with in your career. Now imagine the 5 best of those on one team. That's what working on a team at Netflix is like. Frankly, there are no stupid people here. None.

Everyone I've met is damn sharp, very sharing of their knowledge and time, and enjoys what they do.

You are treated like an adult. You are not told what to do. Netflix is laissez faire, not command and control. With that comes responsibility and the potential for failure. If you fail often enough, you will not survive. If you don't expose yourself to this risk enough, you won't survive.

Some people might consider this a downside; you won't like it at Netflix if you do.

The Netflix time off/vacation policy is that there is no policy. They don't track how many hours you take. You take time off when you want to; you don't have to ask for permission or approval. This non-policy is one example of many of how thoroughly Netflix expects you to behave like an adult.

I've spent many years at big-name valley companies. Without exception, everyone of them claims that they treat employees like adults. All of them pale in comparison to Netflix in this regard.

I'm a developer, and the code base at Netflix has warts that demonstrate its laissez-faire culture. There is no architecture group with veto power, so the code evolves organically. I personally think this is great, but it can be frustrating.

Luckily, it never stays "ugly" for long, but it frequently feels like a ball of mud.

There seems to be quite a bit of turnover. The first month I worked here, I counted at least five "goodbye" emails. At least four of them were not voluntary.

This can be disconcerting. But this is also not a company like Cisco, with regular annual headcount reduction quotas.

Keep doing what you're doing. I've never been more confident that the senior management in a company was as intelligent and ethical as you are.