A place full of welcoming colleagues where you learn at high speed, but with substantial problems.
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
You will meet tons of people that you will grow to like. I never had better colleagues before.
Verbesserungsvorschläge
Fill the transparency thing with a bit of life. Also work on your diplomatic skills, it's a weird move to fire someone, but then send them a written request to leave a review here.
Arbeitsatmosphäre
It changed. It used to be one of the places that felt like "I'm meeting my friends and we all bring laptops to do some work" to an atmosphere that kept the lovable colleagues part, but contains more and more disorientation and fear. There have been layoffs and people quitting for unclear reasons, so "I might be fired soon" is a genuine fear that comes up in many conversations.
Work-Life-Balance
I rarely had to do overtime. There were certain teams and projects where work took a toll on people's health and family lives, some employees went into hiding about this, some tried to fix it. One of the teams did especially well, even during a big project launch there was hardly any overtime. It's possible, but the balance is not created for you.
Karriere/Weiterbildung
You learn a lot, especially technical things. There is a lot of support for certifications, but not in a systematic way. Some people end up paying for their certs and doing them in their free time, some receive monetary support and time off to study.
Gehalt/Benefits
Salaries are very mixed, many below average, some higher than average. There is no transparency on this and no systematic progression. If you ask for a raise, prepared to be treated as an attacker. I recommend entering high because I ended in a trap of "ask for a raise" – "negotiate goals to meet and only then talk about a potential raise" – "negotiate goals on top of the goals" – "then have an option for a raise".
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
Sustainability efforts (as they are stated on the company website) are just on the surface. No green hosting or CO2 offset for AWS and other services, the office lamps have 600 Watts each (1-3 per room) and in summer, the terrace door is often kept open while the A/C runs full-blast... nope.
The office landlord will fit electric car charging on request though, talk to the friendly facility manager about it.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
It's one of the places where you genuinely like almost all of your colleagues, are happy to go for lunch with them and sometimes become send-a-crying-emoji sad when someone announces working remote for the day.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
Very mixed feelings here. There are people who genuinely care and when they drop a "how are you", they really want to know.
But there are big problems as well, for example when a superior asked a new hire about their sexual orientation in front of others, adding "come on, say it, it's an open culture". Jokes about race and religion are very common, I also witnessed several sexist remarks along the lines of "so you won't send me pictures?" etc.
I regularly ended up in several weeks worth of loops of "come to me when you need assistance" – "ok, I need some assistance right now" – "sorry, it's a bad time". Don't expect replies to mails or meetings starting on time.
Some exchanges with superiors ended when they gave negative feedback, but allowed no explanation from my side, basically silencing me with "so this proves you can't take feedback". On other occasions, they walked out mid-conversation and didn't allow arguments against their position.
Leading up to my layoff, a superior started investigating me behind my back, trying to find reasons to let me go. It felt bad to go to work for quite some time when I learned this.
Arbeitsbedingungen
We have standing desks for around half of the people, you can ask for equipment and usually get what you need. Most importantly, you can choose your laptop. Office chairs are on the cheaper side of things, back pain is a frequent conversation starter in lunch breaks. Try to avoid the coffee machine on the left, it's moldy.
The office has a bunch of suspicious people outside, but you can't beat the public transport connection. You even get parking in the middle of the city and you can take your bike inside in case you're worried. The view out of the big windows helps you think and there's a fresh air supply that keeps the Bahnhofsviertel smells out like 100%.
Kommunikation
Although transparency is often proclaimed as a value, there is hardly any insight in decision making from "above". Feedback is collected here and there, but it seems like decisions have been made before hearing those affected by them (for example when switching tools).
Gleichberechtigung
If you can stand your ground as a woman, you'll be fine.
Interessante Aufgaben
You have a lot of freedom about how to approach your work (most of the time). This places the burden of making it interesting on yourself, but it's definitely possible.