Pros
After 2 years and something spent within Frontiers... there is a lot of good things that will remain in me forever. I will try to be as factual as possible in order to help you, reader, to make a decision would you need to.
1/ Frontiers is *SCRUM*, At least on the IT/PM side.
1.a/ which means we, all, always, inspect and adapt
1.b/ which means we learn every days
1.c/ which means no one is never blamed: fault is team-wise in Frontiers, and the team will work to make sure the fault will not occur again
2/ Frontiers is *very* skilled
2.a/ technically, willing to play next to the big-ones. OAuth Provider, Dev Portal, Automation, ...
2.b/ conceptually, we just have the good number of abstractions. Layers allow uncoupling and efficiency without loosing a foot on the practical ground
2.c/ development-wise, the Teams are amazing. People here are *really* serious about their stuff and know what they are doing and why they do it this way
2.d/ we have a couple of genius among us, those people who will understand immediately what you say (and actualy more) and will build with you the next steps of you thinking until you are very pleased with your idea
3/ Frontiers is curious, *open minded*
3.a/ technically, we have all tested all the storages, from sharepoint to Mongo, through SQLServer and Redis and ElasticSearch.
3.b/ innovation is allowed, even gently pushed forward when a choice has to be made. I think I-and-my-teams have tested and chosen half a dozen different systems: Publication repository, Authentification framework, MQ system, Dev Portal, API standard, Integration framework, Automation, and so on...
3.c/ every one has many opportunities to talk. That is built into SCRUM: Retrospective, planning, demo are the official heartbeats
3.d/ and if the subject is too wide? then we have communities, that gather one member from each team, in order to address common issues/standards.
3.e/ and if no one knows internally? then you can check what the others are doing, either by organizing some calls or attending some conferences
4/ Frontiers is (still) a *start-up* (on some sides)
4.a/ business driven: what goes from the backlog to production is definitively valuable
4.b/ delivery driven: what goes out of a sprint should be production-ready. That's the official target of the company: one go-live for every sprint of every team. (and I can tell you that not only the client is satisified, it is also hudgely satisfactory for the team to see what they build shipped the following week of the demo)
4.c/ short paths to management: you still can walk to the CTO and sell your great technical idea to him. Actually, you can discuss nearly anything with the CTO and grab in return some feedback to enrich one of your user story, and refine a bit your prioritization.
4.d/ happy hours, summer BBQ, winter christmas party. On daily basis, you also have nice lunches with your mates, unlimited coffee, snacks and fruits.
4.e/ hight flexibility with regard to work time/schedule (e.g when your child is sick home or you need a quiet day to make some progress on one project)
5/ Frontiers is its people
5.a/ and they were the reason why I was running my bike every morning to work
5.b/ they were the reason why I smiled when working
5.c/ they were the reason why it was so damn difficult to leave
Cons
After 2 years and something spent within Frontiers... there is also some "less-good things" that I will happily set aside and keep behind me. I will not go into details because I have already done it with the interested persons, but I let you know what are the major drawbacks that I have experienced in Frontiers
1/ no SMART objectives
2/ no access to stakeholders
3/ no shared vision with CEO
4/ project management with responsibilities of product ownership
5/ no part-time possible
