Pros: Everyone across the company is thoughtful, great at their job, and holds each other to high standards. The codebase is clean, well-organized, and generally high quality. The product is genuinely interesting and has a lot of potential for growth. User enthusiasm is really inspiring, and differentiates us from the bevy of other productivity tools. The business is doing well, and profitability allows us to be thoughtful about growing, and we are trying to grow. There is good communication, transparency, and responsiveness from engineering management and company leadership. People like teaching and learning. The office is shoes-off (!), cozy, filled with tasteful household goods, and in a lovely residential area. Health insurance is top-tier. There is free lunch in the office, except during global pandemics, and annual recreational offsites for bonding with the whole team. People come from really interesting and diverse backgrounds. Working without shoes allows your toes to fly free. Engineering compensation is highly competitive.

Cons: Lots of bespoke, homegrown technologies — which is not inherently a con, but does mean there's a steeper learning curve and more surface area to maintain ourselves. As a company, we're still learning how to effectively plan and execute a roadmap, collaborate across teams, and balance feature development with responding to users' needs. During times of normalcy, there's little flexibility for remote work. Hopefully the current pandemic gives us an opportunity to learn how to do it well. Several attempts at recurring team events (board game nights, etc.) have fallen through. I suspect people are less likely to attend because they're working hard and/or have families, and the company is still quite small. Recently there was some turnover without much communication to the company about what happened. Obviously sensitivity and privacy are crucial, but the lack of communication can trigger feelings of unease, like things are being pushed under the rug (regardless of whether or not that's the case). It would be nice to give employees some kind of stipend for working from home.

Pros: From the day I started at Notion, I knew I'd made a good choice, as the company is such an impressive assemblage of passionate, smart, kind, and collaborative people who are both extremely invested in building Notion's product vision and a sustainable company. Since I've been here, I've had easy and direct access to executive staff members who have always made me feel safe and heard. I've had the ability to work on problems that are interesting and challenging to me up and down the technical and product stack. I genuinely enjoy my team and coworkers and the vision toward which Notion is building.

Cons: Notion is in hypergrowth, and as such, has some of the standard problems that come along with it—processes, especially around product development, that are either too light from when the company was smaller, or too heavy for where the company wants to be.

Pros: The company offers excellent benefits, and the leadership is genuinely committed to driving the mission forward. The transparency from the top is refreshing, and the positive culture is evident throughout the organization. There’s minimal corporate speak, and colleagues are attentive and supportive. I've been at many organizations where leaders talk about transparency, but this is the first organization I've been at where I felt like they actually understand the meaning behind it.

Cons: The work environment can be fast-paced and intense at times. There’s often a push to prioritize speed over quality, which can make maintaining a work-life balance challenging, especially during launch periods.