Great Products & People - Designer Oblong Industries Employee Review

Great Management Work Life Balance Remote

not many cons, just do your job

Fascinating technology, literally grew out of Hollywood special effects visualizations and looks awesome compared to other tech in corporate offices and meeting rooms Strong, focused, dedicated team Visionary, inspiring CEO Treated employees with respect and courtesy, up to and after termination (at least in my case) Basically, all the same positives mentioned in other reviews.

Major layoff in late June 2017, about 25-30 people out of about 100 total (numbers are guesses, likely not exact), hit all divisions - sales, engineering, etc. Basically everyone who had been there less than a year, plus a few others. For many of us who had been recruited and left other jobs (some relocated for Oblong, then got let go only a few months in) the reduction prompted a “why did you staff up a few months ago?” reaction. If they start hiring again in 2017 or 2018, I would suggest negotiating a golden parachute into any role in case they decide to suddenly modify staffing levels again. As cool as the technology is, in some ways it is still a solution in search of a problem. Adoption and growth after landing an account is hard, manual work (as is, frequently, just keeping systems running as there are many interconnected systems and potential points of failure). Very, very dependent on one large customer (who is also having financial difficulties and layoffs of their own) and efforts to diversify revenue sources have been unsuccessful. Channel development (and channel relationships/trust) is minimal or non-existent. Similar revenue challenges and mass exodus at primary competitor don’t bode well for this entire tech segment.