Pros
- Incredibly bright, thoughtful people from different backgrounds with strong work ethics. - Accessible to new graduates eager to jump into the professional world. - Free food in the kitchen is always nice. - The product is extremely powerful and quite well built.
Cons
- An unwillingness to keep said talent around. People have been dropping like flies, quitting for better opportunities and the company seems to think it's not a problem. For reference, there were layoffs a few years earlier, which is not uncommon in startups. But what was striking was how many people they let walk away afterwards, even though it was clear that people were stretched incredibly thin. This has, in my opinion, lead to a serious loss in morale, a loss from which I'm doubtful they'll ever return. I overheard one C-level exec tell a group "We only expect you to stay here for a few years then move on." Just brilliant. - False transparency. Diplomacy is important, but to beat around the bush and say everything is fine when clearly things are not is just dishonest and insulting to the employees who work so hard for you and clearly know what's going on. - Salary is below industry standard, at least for entry to mid level positions. Speaking to employees at companies similar to Qubit in similar roles, Qubit probably pays about 25% less than their employers pay their employees. Given how expensive it is to live in cities like London, New York, SF etc., you'd think they'd want to give a competitive salary. - No more opportunity for growth. Progression plans are ill defined, with the company telling you to "make your own destiny." Spare me. People are eager to make an impact, but it's not always clear where that needs to be. It's up to managers to define what the next steps are to move up in the ranks rather than for it to be a guessing game. - The culture has become absolutely toxic. Employees no longer seem happy at work and management is absolutely oblivious. It's not their job to babysit of course, but for a startup you have to keep your employees happy. It's not like there's an abundance of them these days anyway. - The market for the product has become very difficult to figure out, and so some sales people struggle due to lack of transparency about the product's capabilities and a concrete vision. And with an unforgiving sales policy lots of sales people have found themselves on the curb.