I work at Top Hat in the Engineering Department but only joined in the past year. I have heard second hand that things were bad in the past (2+ years ago now) in terms of culture and work/life balance.
Things have been great since I've joined and the exec team is VERY interested in what they can do to make things even better.
Here are a few of my personal observations, both good and bad:
- people most often work 10-6 with flexibility and everyone actually uses their vacation and "personal days"
- most devs actually break from work at lunch (supplied) to socialize and play board games
- you get great visibility into how the company is doing and what other departments are up to
- considering we are a company of 200+ people the execs are very accessible and are happy to spend time with you for any questions/concerns you have
- all work is extremely team oriented. They care about where people want to go in their careers and several people have been progressively given more senior responsibilities.
- the majority (not everyone) is very engaged and excited to be here.
- the handful of people who have left in the past couple years all left on good terms and regularly stay in touch and even come out to Engineering events still. There's definitely a sense of community (although I believe this didn't always exist and will be a challenge to keep around as we grow aggressively).
- great location (for me) right on the subway downtown Toronto
Bad things:
- space is cramped. You get a decent sized standing desk but there's not a lot of breathing room other than that. They've outgrown the space though there are plans in the works to fix this.
- there is time allocated for "Engineering" projects but mostly we are very date driven and have an aggressive product delivery schedule.
- diversity. It's a top management priority for the next year but historically they've clearly dropped the ball here. There are several people in Engineering very interested in improving diversity.
I am clearly a biased party, actively working here, but I genuinely feel it's a great place build your career. There are very few places this size that are growing ~70-80% YoY continuously, actually making profit, and have great ambitions for the future.
The accessibility to executives is something I've noticed even just working on contracts with Top Hat. I am surprised at the level of engagement that your VPs and C-suite execs have with customers. It certainly makes customers feel cared for.
