Ventajas
The company genuinely tries, and generally succeeds, to make a good working environment for their employees. They offer good salaries for the people they consider to be the "right ones" and regardless of performance, they try their best to give employees a bonus. Good company perks like office snacks, flexibility of working The software development side of the business is like another company compared to the rest of it - in a good way. They are physically separated into another half of the floor the company is based on in the Willis Tower. This gives those employees the space to get on with their jobs and be much less exposed to the machinations of the client facing and administrative staff. The vast majority of the people who work at Backstop are genuinely nice, fun and smart people.
Desventajas
The CEO has filled the ranks of the company's management with like minded middle aged, white, ex-institutional men who are not working towards the company's success but to see who can survive the longest via a competition of "Who has the bigger appendage?". When I first joined the company there were a large number of women mangers. They have all been removed but one or two and replaced with the men described above. They tell candidates information that is flat out untrue in order to persuade them to take a role. New staff are often brought in over the top of existing staff as a carrot to take the role, this undermines their existing staff to the point of disgruntlement. Staff turnover is thus very high. Company targets are unrealistic with the quality of management and resources they are willing to deploy in such a fast moving industry. The company is unwieldy and relatively static, which it shouldn't be for its size. For a small company they are /very/ process driven to the point that following set processes become more important than achieving what the process is set out to help accomplish. It is so common for the company to fail to achieve its targets and goals that they have started to assess its staff, not on their success, but on metrics of their efforts. For example, someone that is less UNsuccessful than another in the same role is fired while the other person stays as they have more evidence of 'trying to succeed' - and has wielded their appendage in meetings more skilfully.