Pros
Amazing, amazing people. Ashoka staff are super smart, curious, and values-oriented. The work itself can at times be really exciting. I had the chance to work with a range of interesting partners, and learned a lot through them. I felt I was given a lot of responsibility and opportunities to grow my skills. Team culture can, on some teams, be incredibly dynamic and supportive - I was lucky enough to be on one of those teams.
Cons
Overall Ashoka culture is tough. There is a lot of distrust of upper-level management and a lot of frustration about issues ranging from pay to the hiring process to not feeling heard. In my opinion, this distrust is earned. The strategy that Ashoka uses build an "Everyone a Changemaker world" is always changing, usually at the whim of those at the top. This dynamism can feel exciting or extremely frustrating, depending on your point of view. Over-valuing entrepreneurialism leads to some strange outcomes. Despite the emphasis on empathy, people are incentivized to play politics and "own" strategic projects, sometimes cutting out members of their own, or other, teams. If you don't learn to toot your own horn, you get left behind. Additionally, key parts of Ashoka's infrastructure have been less-than-professionally managed because of a reliance on non-experts. Finally, sometimes entrepreneur-types who are terrible to work with make it through the hiring process. When they do, they're beloved by the management for their ideas, but drive everyone else nuts because they are difficult to work with, and oftentimes very self-serving.
