Pros
At first it was a great company to work for. The culture was great. Most of the people are great. I agreed with their anticorporation mindset. It was a great tech company to work at. A lot of the people do really reflect the culture that is shown online. Just not the people who matter.
Kontras
They always say that people don't leave a bad company, they leave a bad manager. That's the case but make it a bad CEO. The CEO has become so obsessed with restoring the culture of the company that he is actively destroying it himself. He's become obsessive, micromanager, and emotional. Its as if the culture of interworks is his entire personality. He has become fixated on controlling every aspect of the culture. He doesn't listen to the middle managers. He ignores them when it is most convenient for him. The culture that InterWorks so broadly boasts about is extremely toxic. It's a boys club of the CEO and his best friends who are completely untouchable, and if you don't agree with their mindsets, you are the one in the wrong. Nevermind the unhealthy amount of drinking in the office. Nevermind the inappropriate comments about women and making jokes about pornography. Nevermind the lack of an HR department, so you have to go talk to the CEO and his wife when something comes up. Which is a problem all in itself -- most of the HR issues go through the CFO. Which should not, and is not, her job. Imagine having an issue with a policy or a person, and having to take it to the CEO because there is nobody else. He doesn't listen to managers. He doesn't listen to his directors. It's the boys club or nothing. The CEO tries so hard to not impose any policies or rules (unless it is something on his personal agenda) that anything goes. The policy is to address the issue with the person directly... so go and confront that person who made the insulting joke to their face. I am sure you can tell where that goes. The sales team and the BI teams do not get the support they need. Their pushed aside and ignored completely for the IT people. There are inherent issues with management that are just ignored on the BI side. The workloads are unreal. The hours expected are absurd. You can expect to work anywhere from 8 to 15 hours in any given day, and then be expected to show up at the empty office the next day anyway. When asked for help, you really don't get any on the BI side. You are just expected to 'work hard, play hard' (or, work 60 hour weeks, and drink on the side.) More and more people are leaving InterWorks and the CEO is just not addressing any of the issues at hand. All he does is try to throw parties and focus on the culture to try and mask any of the real issues at hand. Many people are underpaid (for example, if you're an intern, and you get hired fulltime, you stay at 35k/year while other people in IT are making around 75k/year) and there is no transparency on salary. Any given team could be making between 35k/yr to 150k/yr. No bonuses. It's difficult to get raises. No outlined goals to get raises - you just have to work hard and hope the boys club likes you. But there is always that culture.