Pros
I was highly paid than what I was getting in the market. My salary was slightly more than twice my last salary. Company has unlimited or as they say no leave policy. I was on leave for 3 days in first week, on leave for 12-14 days in the third month, few WFHs when not feeling well in my short span there. Free food if you are staying late and cab reimbursements too in those cases. Almost every week there used to be some outing, going to play cricket/football visiting Nandi Hills. Employees get laptops from the company. One policy (I think this policy doesn’t exists any long) in which employee can buy any laptop and the company will pay the half of it and employee can keep the laptop. I bought a laptop of around 2L and the company paid full amount for me and then deducted my share of 50% from my salary in EMIs across 6-7 months. Almost all of colleagues are very helpful, humble and caring. Few times even the engineering manager would sit next to employee to solve if he/she is stuck somewhere. One of the co-founder visited me when I was sick in the first week as I had only talked/connected with him till then. People would bring snacks in the evening for everyone. They say you tell us what you need and we will get you that, you just focus on work. Also no one is considered an employee and is a teammate, they did believe and treated everyone like that. Using employee and company for someone who hasn’t been within the company.
Cons
Work-Life balance was not there. The company did give employees everything needed but no time, company wanted to release every bug/feature URGENTLY. But that was always how they worked. Time was given for learning something employee doesn’t know. But employee are expected to learn only how much is gonna be used as relase was to be done URGENTLY and learn rest in own time : after office or weekends. While I was leaving company accepted they did this wrongly and would make changes. Very Flat Hierarchy: CTO or Engineering manager would give tasks to developer directly and would keep us in uncomfortable situation sometimes, like call anytime if something is breaking (in there defence: its your baby you take care of it), would give task to monitor few scheduled task at night even after working in the office hours. How should I turn down as the manager or the CTO is saying this. They later started listening and requested everyone to speak up if he/she is uncomfortable.