Avantages
- Product has potential, despite management's best effort to destroy it with weekly pivots. - Flexible vacation policy let's you take frequent breaks from the madness if needed. - Catered lunches are legit and will often be the highlight of your day between executive fire drills. - CEO has a vision for what HackerRank should look like in 20 years and no idea how to get there quarter by quarter. But, on the plus side, he will reply to any college kid who emails him with accolades on how much they love programming. So, there's that.
Inconvénients
- CHURN. Of employees, customers, and morale. No concept better defines HackerRank. - "HackerRank transparency", whereby execs typically tell you half-truths to make it seem like they're being open, but they're not. - Has a manager made you a promise? Get it in writing. Actually, get it notarized. Lest it will never actually happen. Like that "equity refresh" for everyone that's been "two weeks away" for the past 7 months? - Speaking of which, equity grants are minuscule. You'll make more money selling snacks from the kitchen on eBay than you will a liquidity event. - CEO seems to have trouble letting subject matter experts make appropriate decisions, particularly for business units. Please let the people you hire do their jobs and stop meddling. - The energy that a startup needs to thrive isn't there. Before 10AM and after 4PM the office is empty, and between 10 and 4 it isn't that much different. - Change fatigue- a new exec enters or exits every month, and every time is another round of "show the new person my value" and "adapt to their sweeping changes and ideas which the 2nd to last person probably already tried". - Similarly, the few people who make it to 1.5 years are almost always gone before the 2 year mark. Good people. Talented people. The people HackerRank should be relying on to take them to the next level are either burnt out or forced out. - Management makes comically absurd claims like "HackerRank will be the first trillion dollar company" and "one-fifth of the world's population will use HackerRank". Another proof point that basic understanding of the market is non-existent, and that visions of grandeur are valued more than pragmatic planning and execution.