Pros
Working at RedCloud was always a laugh. It really takes the greatest absurdities and stereotypes of start-ups and kicks them into overdrive. Sometimes, these were the "better to laugh than cry" sort of laughter. It's an environment where there are a lot of problems to solve. If you take initiative you can really make a difference and learn a lot. Despite all the problems, there were a number of people that genuinely wanted to improve things. I saw, and I hope contributed to, a lot of improvements before I left. I would consider recommending it to junior developers, as that sort of "straight in the deep end" experience can be valuable.
Kontras
There's a lot of office politics that create a very hostile culture. Everyone is talking privately behind one another's backs trying to figure out who's aligned with who and how to navigate this strange environment, because of a few key figures prone to aggressive behaviour and outbursts and because of the poor leadership- almost everyone is lacking direction, especially in the first several months. The product is in an awful state. The codebase is over a decade old and was dreamt up by someone that seemingly invented their own bizarre programming principals, ignoring all industry standards and common sense. It wasn't written by RedCloud, either; it was acquired from another company that crashed, presumably because their product was a failure. It really is exceptionally broken, far beyond your typical legacy platform. I tried on several occasions to make this apparent to management but they showed little interest. There is no risk aversion in the culture of RedCloud Technologies. In a way, there is the opposite; on one occasion we discovered a critical security flaw prior to a major release, only to be told by C-level management that this flaw was already known of and they weren't bothered about it. I wouldn't be remotely surprised if the company ends up in serious legal trouble because of the insecurities inherent in the product. C-level management shows very little interest in product development. There are expansive senior teams across marketing and sales, but the product development department goes it alone with very little leadership. The CTO in particular rarely showed an interest in product development, frequently made it apparent that they had no idea what we were doing day-to-day, and only caused problems on the occasions where they decided to get involved. This lack of leadership and management makes it very easy for silos to form. I know of several instances where people have just ignored integrating with other teams and wasted their time developing software that has zero business value and actually get rewarded for this. In short, it's a goldmine for crooks; just lie to management and watch YouTube all day, and get paid triple figures to do it. I've encountered serious misogyny within the organisation. On one occasion a colleague went on an unprompted rant about how he believed women didn't belong in the workplace and only acquired promotions through "political correctness", that they should "stay in the kitchen" etc; I brought this matter to C-level management but they faced no consequence, and were showered in rewards instead. At RedCloud I've witnessed things I thought I would never see in a business; C-level management abusively shouting at and berating a junior developer during a well-attended conference call, projects that invest huge amounts of resources for over a year and deliver nothing of value, employees not even being granted common decencies such as paid leave for jury duty. Worse yet regarding the poor treatment of employees was the implicit hierarchy. I was one of the better treated because I was regarded as being valuable, but the more junior employees and those with less initiative were the ones being treated badly, and sometimes exploitatively (as described in the "Wasted Opportunity" review). Perhaps the saddest thing about RedCloud is that there are some genuinely great people there, and some of them have ernest faith in it. Most of the business doesn't realise how dire the situation in product development actually is. While many of us were quietly aware that the product was a joke there are a number of people with low technical literacy, but often talented in other areas, who ernestly believe in the product. The senior technical management continues to lie to the rest of the business by greatly exaggerating the adequacy of the product. I believe they are afraid of the inevitable consequences of telling the truth, which only get worse the longer they're delayed.
