Pluspunten
My initial year to 18 months at Farmdrop was fantastic. The CEO at the time (Ben Pugh) was inspirational to listen to and truly motivated you to want to help the company succeed in their mission of 'fixing the food chain'. The culture and social aspects were great, the work/life balance was as close to perfect as I believe you can achieve in a startup and it was a company I thoroughly enjoyed waking up to go and work for. There were also: - Nice perks like free food & drink and a cooked lunch every day - Friendly & skilled engineering team with a CTO who actually cared about you and your happiness
Minpunten
Unfortunately after a number of senior management hires, a significant drop in happiness was felt by almost everyone I spoke to working within the company. This happened around 6 months prior to the Series B raise. We moved from our much loved office space in Bermondsey to a modern but clinically boring and depressing office space in Old Street. Substantial pressure was applied to deliver new features and we were constantly informed on a weekly basis that targets were not being met in regards to our key metrics. The focus on what we needed to deliver felt wrong and was a feeling shared between peers. Despite communication between the engineering team and upper management, nothing changed. The CEO (Ben Pugh) almost disappeared and was rarely ever seen in the office, with responsibility of running the company handed to the MD who simply didn't understand how to motivate and excite the team like Ben did. Social activities began to dwindle and it almost felt like a responsibility for the employee's to arrange events and things to do. If it wasn't for the amazing team and the close friends I made at Farmdrop, I would have left much, much sooner.