The Trade Desk

Colleagues are invariably friendly, generous, and great to learn from and collaborate with. People (especially in the London office) are from all over the world with diverse backgrounds and life experiences.

Work is challenging and stimulating, and generally quite varied. There's a need to be agile about strategy (always more to do than time to do it!), which is a good learning opportunity.

The social side of things is pleasant, with some 'top down' events (well, before COVID anyway) and more 'organic' hanging out with colleagues. Pub, restaurants, board games, sports after work or at lunchtime, etc. Nothing is forced if some or all of those things aren't for you. Great office breakfast and lunch.

Managers typically genuinely care about their direct reports' wellbeing and make an effort to provide challenging, interesting work and growth opportunities.

While engineering is encouraged to proactively attend to real business and customer needs, most of the time the trust and autonomy are there to do things with quality and in a direction dictated by engineering experts. Engineers at all levels are expected to become experts and owners of the areas they work on.

Stock incentives and bonuses have been very generous historically.

Work can be difficult, and the nature of the business gives a seasonality to things. Challenges and pressure can heat up in the approach to a Q4 of the year or a particularly big release.

The frequent need to respond in an agile way to new opportunities and risks can be daunting and occasionally makes it harder to spend focus time really digging deep on a particular problem.

Some of the higher-ups in sales can come over a bit self-congratulatory, but most of the time they're also actually good at what they do and good collaborators.

Continue to keep culture and employee wellbeing at the forefront!