Netflix

Excellent salary, smart people, great time flexibility, satisfying projects.

The company values of freedom and responsibility are really like treating employees like adults and trusting them to execute the best overall decisions for the company, which is effective when enough context is given.

Innovation and experimentation are rewarded well, and many opportunities for ongoing education are offered.

Internal politics. Lots of blame game behavior, played as subtly (yet transparently if you pay attention) as possible.

Some managers spend too much time in the code instead of managing their team. I had the experience of offering many recommendations for improving team performance and not having them implemented because the culture here is to just do what you want and either get rewarded hugely or sacked.

Management coaching appears to be improving, but inconsistently applied. I've seen people who need to be let go stay on for a long time with many opportunities to change, and people who were very competent let go without much warning that they need to change something.

I've also seen projects executed that solved the business problems presented but were dropped because management didn't like it rather than some other specific reasons.

Management is not about process. I think Netflix has that correct.

Excellent management is about getting problems out of the way of employees so that they can excel, and about managing interpersonal conflicts so that a team can leverage one another's strengths to push the team higher than before.

I think this element is missing on some teams at Netflix, and that there is too much emphasis on daily high performance (important) and little building of loyalty or camaraderie.