Pros: There are a lot of kind and creative people at Patreon.

Cons: Patreon has been struggling with strategy since the beginning. My time there started six months after a large layoff. Six months later, I was laid off in a big release of engineering talent, following a "fat billion-dollar valuation." Three months later, they were hiring again. A year later, they announced another large layoff and then started hiring again.

Pros: It's great to work somewhere that actually helps the world, and everyone believes in the mission. Almost every employer is creative themselves—being an incredible musician, comic book author, or YouTuber, etc. It's impossible to find this anywhere else today.

Cons: The execs seemed incapable of creating an engineering team they liked. Engineering Managers and CTOs had incredible turnover, with several Eng Manager layoffs during my tenure. One CTO they hired was like a parody of a CTO you would find in Dilbert or the Silicon Valley TV show. He had us make posters about how we felt about the company's values for half a day. The fact that they hired and kept him on for a full year shows how oblivious they are about creating a competent engineering environment.

Pros: Patreon has a great mission, and many people there are incredibly dedicated to it. It could be a genuinely inspiring place to work at times. The codebase was even clean and pleasant to work in! I learned a ton, and for most of my tenure, I felt supported and appreciated.

Cons: Sometime in 2018, leadership started making really odd decisions, and they haven't stopped. There have been sudden firings, constant thrash on strategy and reporting structure, and vague explanations as to why any of it was happening. It is not a safe or comfortable place to work anymore. Good talent is leaving in droves, and the organization is steadily losing diversity. It's incredibly depressing to watch.