Pros: Lots of nice and smart people to work with. A good learning opportunity. A good growth opportunity. Great compensation.

Cons: Huge workload. Very fast pace. Long hours are normal. Exhausting!

Pros: Every full-stack engineer I've met is super talented technically, with great work experience and schools. Honestly, it's a bit intimidating when you look at everyone's resumes. But they're all very nice, patient, and willing to go above and beyond to ramp you up. Everyone is super invested in each other, which is rare to see, especially coming from a 2000+ company where engineers couldn't care less about the product or team. If you're good and work hard, you get to work on some bleeding-edge stuff and ship entire features or products yourself. I don't think you get this much ownership in much larger labs. I'm learning a ton and have friends who find Perplexity so impressive, from the products and the position they are in.

Cons: Long hours if you're on a tight deadline to ship. Scope creep can be real as we continue to add new capabilities to various products. The models getting better also means we're constantly revising the roadmap to ensure we're shipping the latest AI capabilities. It's what makes Comet so dope, but does take up time and weights into weekends sometimes as well. Founders are super intense, but given how competitive the AI industry is, it makes sense. NYC hours and SF HQ also means some late nights as you stay up with the team. The team does fly you out often if needed, so it's not a bad thing if you like travel.

Pros: From day 1, you're working on something quite important and will be shipped to millions of users. No 20-person committees, endless QA processes, or product counsel in the way. You get to own things end-to-end, and the team pushes you to move faster.

Cons: If you need tons of support and time, you won't be very happy here. Everyone works super hard, and working through weekends isn't uncommon, especially if you're close to a deadline. You're expected to QA stuff yourself, and if things are buggy, all eyes are on you to fix them. As a former founder, this is all familiar, but if I joined a few years earlier, I would've found it really tough. It's also high intensity, as founders are always on.