Pros: Has some deep flaws, but generally a rewarding place to work with lots of potential. * Extremely strong pipeline and product-market fit. Samsara no doubt has a very bright future and is still in hypergrowth in terms of customer base and increasing annual business almost exponentially. * The product is generally top-of-the-line with very interesting problems to solve, and Samsara has been good at identifying new investment areas to grow the business. * Amazing individual contributors on the engineering team. ICs are generally very helpful, smart, and caring people to work with. * Solid and fast-paced career growth for junior ICs (SWE II-IV and Senior I). * A lot of improvements have been made to the career pathing framework, including more transparency about leveling expectations/durations and having manager calibrations to make junior IC promotions more standardized/fair. Less clear for senior engineers, though. * Middle and upper management seem like they have been more receptive to feedback in the last 6 months, although the R&D org still has some deep management flaws. * The CEO seems very humble and is clearly well-informed and personable. Not sure how that translates into actual leadership, though.

Cons: Generally unimpressed with engineering/product middle management (e.g., director level/VP level). Also, engineering VPs and CTOs are MIA to the lower levels. R&D reorgs literally every quarter lead to a general sense of inefficiency, disorder, and lack of confidence that middle management can make up its mind and know what it's doing. Yes, we are adapting quickly as we learn more about the market, but the number of reorgs and product/management turnover is excessive. It's pretty common to have 3-4 different managers within the first 1.5 years of working here; that can't be efficient. Middle management is very upwards-facing. Historically, they care more about delivering and showing execs flashy new features without substance, rather than doubling down and investing time into tech debt, making sure core functionality is reliable, and improving IC well-being. This is getting better overall though, after several implosions with products failing to deliver core advertised functionality (that led to huge burnout and attrition). An IC's overall experience and happiness is almost entirely team-based. Engineering managers can make or break your experience. What does this say about what middle managers are doing to lead and manage R&D culture? Benefits could be better, especially accounting for all the new expenses employees are incurring after the prolonged WFH. There's no makeup for lost transportation benefits, catered food, etc. The layoff in 2020 is obviously a source of unhappiness, but also the lack of transparency around how those decisions were made. Apparently, engineering managers/directors weren't consulted, and productivity "metrics" weren't used either. Some part of this must not be true because they definitely didn't pick people at random.

Pros: For those who have been in the company for two years or more, the price of the stock has skyrocketed, and it is too expensive to leave it.

Cons: Engineers are under great pressure and unhappy. Tenured engineers have been leaving recently, and management downplays the significance. Compensation is only part of the issue. Other employees say that we need to hire new engineers to replace all the departing engineers so that our company value can continue increasing. Recruiting increased the referral bonus because we encountered difficulties in hiring, and they hope we'll dupe our friends to join. The IPO cannot happen soon enough.

Pros: I love Samsara! * The company maintains a high talent bar across all teams, especially engineering. * The technology platform is very modern (Go, Typescript, React, GraphQL). * Kind, caring, funny coworkers - the company has great values. * The product is very well positioned to be a major IoT platform. * It feels like the company is firing on all cylinders. * There are lots of opportunities for rapid career growth. * Phenomenal executive leadership.

Cons: Since there is so much opportunity for business/product expansion, the team can be stretched a bit thin at times. The company moves very fast, so priorities can shift quickly at times. There are also many benefits that come from this.