Pros
Rackspace is a large company with a small team mentality. This is fostered by team specialization allowing individuals to work tightly with few other employees thus creating connections that you may not easily get from a larger group. Also in that environment, engagement is focused upon, and managers in the support realm at least work closely with their direct reports to make sure that they are an engaged group. The Gallup Q12 is used here, and this measures each manager in the company and ranks them according to their reports which creates accountability. The culture is open and relaxed, people have to work hard to get the fruits of their labor, the best employees understand that they have the right to have fun when they have worked hard. There is a lot of opportunity to grow here. Rackspace has always expanded rapidly and with this comes the potential to escalate rapidly, if you have the tenacity and hunger to advance.
Kontras
The middle to senior leadership group is not balanced correctly. There are too many of those that have come from the outside and do not take the time to really understand the mentality of this company, which is vastly different to the corporate machines from which they have scurried from. The same workflows and recipes will not stick as well at Rackspace. Another issue is that some of the leadership is not experienced enough, perhaps something that is similar in a lot of other companies (I read Google's reviews, and their problems seem similar to Rackspace's) and they make decisions not based on logic or strategy, but the current popularity/buzz on the floor/street. However saying that - the senior executive group I have full confidence in, I know that they have the best interests of the company in mind, I just hope that the middle layers don't suffocate them from the real information getting up there. I hope that senior leadership reads the reviews that come up twice yearly. There are a lot of other departments within the company that are not managed properly, and as the lifeblood of the organization, I want there to be more control given back to support group. As Rackspace is now publicly traded, I feel that the compensation will veer in a different track, to become inline with other businesses like itself. This is not a concern that I have at this juncture.