Pros: The only two things that come to mind are: 1. We have a union! 2. The [unearned] prestige that comes with the “name”

Cons: 1. Horrible comp. Every engineer here could make 2x as much at a small tech company easily. (But we’re stuck here out of fear of getting laid off elsewhere) 2. While we have a union, we’re not able to take advantage of that as much yet because leadership keeps stalling. They are not acting in good faith and have actually committed blatant status quo violations (changing our working conditions by mandating return to office, removing COVID vaccination requirements for entering the building, surveilling our badge data and using it for performance reviews, removing conference budgets). Even the NLRB has warned them of their behavior, and no change has been seen in response. 3. The insidious racism, sexism, homophobia, etc. is disgusting, especially for a place that thinks so highly of itself. 4. Engineering culture - NYT has been around for 170+ years, and the state of its technology reflects that. It’s impossible to get anything done here in a way that’s sustainable. 5. No career growth once you get to the senior title.

Pros: Being in this building and walking through the newsroom just makes you feel like you are a part of something special. The history and the mission are meaningful, and it makes the job feel like it matters. Everyone is very motivated by this.

Cons: Even as a software engineer, the amount of meetings you will have to go to is intense. It is sometimes hard to find any time to code. Sometimes you will have meetings on top of meetings. You will have to block off random chunks of time on your schedule so that you can code, but meetings will get booked into them regardless. Other cons are completely team dependent. But generally, if you are on a consumer-facing news product team as an engineer, it may be tough. You will be surrounded by competitive, Type A coworkers. Priorities are strange, and engineers have no voice in the product. Product managers and designers run everything with a tight grip and no flexibility. All your deliverables exist to make them look good, and they will ask for unnecessary things constantly. You will be micromanaged to death, and the politics of interacting with the product team will slowly wear you down. Relations between product and engineering are tense for this reason. Upper management seems to have no interest in remedying this, and engineers leave constantly because of it.

Pros: Emphasis on the tech part of the org, good career ladder.

Cons: On-call shifts downplayed in interview