I'm interviewing and would be very helpful to know what it's like from inside....the good, bad, and ugly YOE: 4 TC: 210
Avoid. Interviewers frequently reschedule and then tell you that the position has been filled internally. 🤦♂️
That must have been rough. Which role were you interviewing for? How much further in the process were you?
Not in eng and relatively new. But it’s one of the most transparent, gsd, collaborative, and no ego cultures I’ve been part of, and this is my 7th company
I can give some of my experience at Toast. I've been here for about 4 years, so I've seen it morph a little from scrappy start up to now-public-company. The good: culturally, very much "no assholes", we seem to hire high quality engineers who bring a very collaborative, constructive mindset to building our systems. Compensation seems fine for Boston area (though I'm not sure how TC compares, or how new RSUs work out, but options were very good to me). Work is interesting, though I imagine that some teams have more interesting work than others. Modern tech stack, desire to build the best products, etc, great to see the impact we have on a traditionally low tech industry. Not a lot of bad and ugly. With 4 years of experience you're probably right in the Toast sweet spot. For more senior engineers it feels like there's less upward progression. Layoffs last year sucked, but leadership was very transparent about it, and given the restaurant industry impact at the time (and before the government's PPP and such) it was probably the prudent move. My one "hindsight" of it was that we seemed to cut engineers without looking ahead to where we would need the hands for a more off-premise restaurant industry; so we lost a lot of good front end and web services engineers and then had an immediate need for front end and web services engineers.
Thanks! That's great insight. How do you feel about leadership as the company moves from startup phase to a more mature one?
In regards to the feeling like there is less upward progression for more senior engineers, do you feel like there is a particular cause or you’re just pointing out what you’ve witnessed?
They laid off a major chunk of their workforce in 2020 so that is a red flag for me. My friend interviewed for a role last week at toast. Passed the recruiter round, hiring manager said they are first considering the people they laid off and then the new applications.
Hmm...that's not nice but at least they are trying to get back people they laid off. Most companies wouldn't look back
I mean, that was at the start of the pandemic where revenue fell off a cliff and there was huge uncertainty. In hindsight, I think the founders learned they cut too deep. so if anything, it’s better to have had that learning already take place Plus I think it speaks volumes that we’re prioritizing ex-Toasters and most are very interested to come back