Pros
I've worked at large, multinational organizations and at tech start ups, and salesforce.com has combined the best of both worlds into one organization via smart hiring, and an inspired corporate culture.
Some of the (many) benefits I enjoy:
* Flexible work locations (work from home, from the office, any combination of both);
* 48 hours of paid Volunteer time in the community, with grants awarded when this milestone is met;
* Charity matching grants, allowing me to double any charitable donations via the salesforce Foundation;
* Best in class health, dental, paid training, vacation time, etc;
* Extremely talented coworkers;
* Ability to define your day-to-day responsibilities, projects, long term focus;
* Ability to move between departments, or make non-linear career moves;
* Working for a company that is constantly redefining the segment / products we sell keeps work exciting, and allows easy transitions to new roles;
* Hard work is publicly rewarded, promotions come whenever you've proven it's time for one;
* Involved and approachable leaders - Our hierarchy may appear layered, but we're encouraged to treat the organization as flat as possible.
Cons
Existing at the bleeding edge of a segment that is constantly being redefined involves constant course correction and strategy shakeups. If consistency is your bread and butter, this company may not be for you.
Explosive growth also means that we're constantly playing catch-up with headcount, therefore capacity is routinely stretched. Add mid-year strategy shakeups, and it becomes hard to build process frameworks or policies, or to spend time analyzing past successes and failures.
(Note - There has been an impressive uptick in capacity planning over the past few years, and this is starting bear fruit, so this latter point is impacting us less as time goes on)