Leaving Bloom Was the Best Career Move I've Made
Pros
Decent benefit package, flexible work schedule, and in the rare (and I mean really rare) occasions where everyone is not in firefighting panic mode, creative side projects are encouraged.
Cons
Working at Bloom Energy is like being in a bad romantic relationship. While you’re in it, you’re constantly trying to convince yourself that it's not so bad, that the other person will change, that everything you’ve invested isn’t in vain, and that things will get better. Once you get out you’re just like “That sucked! Why the hell didn’t I do that YEARS ago!” To be fair, I really enjoyed working at Bloom when I first started -- it was a great work environment, people were really smart, creative, collaborative, and friendly. It was a place where the best ideas won and it didn’t matter if you were an intern or a PhD with 20 years of experience. On top of that the pay was alright for a start-up, the stock options were plentiful, and the benefits package was great. Unfortunately, as Bloom grew things seemed to get political and deteriorate fast. Infighting became rampant, different teams started trying to sabotage each other, and things like normal engineering review meetings would always become finger pointing matches. Firefighting was the norm and instead of trying to prevent the fires, we started to celebrate the firefighters. I had hoped that these were just growing pains, but things seemed to always get worse. Eventually, it got to the point where it was almost impossible to get anything done. As the hope of an IPO faded and budgets got smaller and smaller, the infighting and stonewalling reached epic proportions. Morale was abysmal and It was impossible to get lunch or grab a drink with coworkers without it become a total bitchfest. By the time I left, almost all the hard working and talented engineers that I truly respected had already left the company in disgust. Instead of addressing all the issues the company was facing head on, management was always trying to paint a happy picture. Everyone saw through the BS and morale seemed to sink lower. I really wish Bloom the best of luck and I hope they can make it to IPO one day, I just don’t think they’ll get there without some drastic changes but unfortunately it seems that no one there wants to make those changes much less even start talking about them.