Pros
1. The company is in a new and uncharted domain so it has innovative products.
2. Latest technologies.
3. I worked with nice and bright people while there.
4. Partial freedom to propose solutions.
Kontras
1. Planning is poor.
2. They ask for ownership and pro-activity, but are constantly micromanaging and assigning tasks.
3. They also ask for the 'can do attitude', which means taking the long hours, but I was never offered something in return which is usual in startups, like stock options.
4. Management considered some of my work not within the required standard, but many colleagues didn't.
5. They say they follow Agile, but it is not followed at all. They will quickly say no company truly follows Agile to justify that.
6. Busyness (being constantly busy) is valued.
7. A lot of feedback was that new features were missing requirements, but those requirements were never clearly communicated and were literally special scenarios.
8. I was constantly taken out of core activities, which is expected in a startup environment, but had an impact on other activities, which was not taken into consideration by management.
9. Bad recruitment. They say it's more difficult to enter the company than it is on the CIA and that it should stay like that, but employee turn over was very high and many people were fired a few days after being hired. The worst part was that this was rarely publicly communicated and people just vanished without traces.