Pros: The engineering team is astoundingly good. They set the example for what all engineering teams should aspire to be: talented, motivated, and diverse. You will learn the ins and outs of finance and banking, for better or worse (be prepared to learn how very old banks are in their approach to technology). Free food! The excellent customer service team is the epitome of calm and relaxed, especially when dealing with customers who are sensitive about their money. It sits right on the train tracks, so the commute is easy-ish. Very young and high-energy employees. An end-of-year reward for hard work.

Cons: The CTO is scared of technology and refuses to listen to the subject matter experts that he hires. He insists things be done in a very late 90's manner. Speaking of the CTO, don't expect to actually receive any useful feedback or even talk to him. He prefers to speak through other people and is incapable of managing anyone directly. Expect the CEO and CFO/COO to talk a lot about respect in the workplace, then watch the CEO berate employees in front of everyone, typically using very abusive language. You will most likely have a TERRIBLE manager. Don't worry though, they will be failed upwards fairly quickly, and you will be re-organized under a new and equally terrible manager, unless you are lucky enough to get the ONE good manager. * No raises. * No path for promotion. * If you are not promoted within a certain amount of time, you are fired. There is no set time frame in which you should expect to be promoted or any goals to focus on for promotion. Either you are liked by the execs and your manager, or you are not. There is no half way. Employee reviews are not based on your skillset or impact on the company, but rather if people like you or not. Employees will blatantly lie on your reviews to keep you from earning a possible end-of-year bonus. There is a single bonus for your team that is given out to a single person at the end of the year. Refer to the above statement about reviews to determine who gets the bonus. Don't bother applying if you are not a recent college graduate, unless you are applying to be an executive. In that case, you should expect to be fired by the CEO after 1 year.

Pros: I look forward to coming in to work. Everyone I work with is super talented, and so far I've observed no big egos. The engineering culture is awesome as well - best practices are adhered to, the technology is cutting edge, and data is king. We're also exploding right now in terms of growth, both in terms of our product and the size of our team. It's a really exciting place to be and I can't wait to see where we'll be in a year.

Cons: For someone who is looking to be told what to do, this is definitely not the place to be. Your work is largely self-directed (for me, this was a plus). Also, it's in Palo Alto, and I happen to like living in San Francisco. They pay for my Caltrain pass, though!

Pros: Great engineering culture and a very strong management team. The company is very transparent and has very experienced leadership, so it's a great place to learn how startups work from a team that has been through it before. The product is also in an interesting and impactful space, so there are always rewarding and challenging technological problems to solve.

Cons: Wealthfront is growing quickly, so there are some growing pains with figuring out the organizational structure and processes that will allow the company to continue to scale.