Pros
I've been at Zoom for about a year now and here are my biggest 'pros' so far: - People: we hire are hardworking, thoughtful, and scrappy individuals. The people I work with are hands down some of the most knowledgable and talented I've experienced in my career. - Brand, Mission & Values: I love working for a company that has such great brand recognition and is truly changing the way people work and live for the better - Products: are second to none and it's exciting to see how they are evolving to fit the new hybrid enviroment - Benefits: it's evident Zoom truly cares about its employees. Our benefit package is generous, although there's room for improvement (no matching 401k!) - Leadership Transparency: I love how regularly we hear updates from our executive team and appreciate their thoughtfulness in how they approach our All Hands and other meetings - Work/Life Balance: I personally feel like I have work/life balance. I'm encouraged to take time off and it's clear leadership cares about my mental health and wellbeing. - Flexibility: I appreciate how as long as I'm getting my work done, it generally doesn't matter from where, during what hours, etc. (within reason) - Focus on DEI: Zoom does a fantastic job supporting DEI with our various ERGs and associated events
Cons
Here are some areas I think Zoom can improve: - Internal Processes/Cross-Collaboration: while I wasn't here during 'peak' Covid, it's apparent a lot of structure and organization internally was put on pause just to keep the lights on at the company. There's a ton of work to be done to streamline processes, make data more reliable/available, and generally speaking with how teams work together instead of rowing in different directions - Customer Centricity: linked to the above, all departments and teams should have goals/KPIs linked to customer success and customer happiness. It's very clear some departments care about the customer (particularly those on the front lines), while those behind-the-scenes often don't approach their work in a customer-centric way. - Career Progression: is very opaque for me. I've never worked at a company where there isn't a formal performance review process and I don't have a strong sense of how bonus/pay/equity decisions are made - Middle Management: insanely busy. I rarely meet with my manager and when I do, it's clear she's always distracted, not fully paying attention, and at times feels like she's using our time together to simply check the box. I wish we received more strategic vision/goals from our senior leaders. - External Company Vision: candidly speaking, we do a very poor job of marketing ourselves as a 'platform' company, which is what the entire exec team would tell you we are trying to become/currently are. Everyone knows us for our Meetings product because most have used it, but few are aware we have products outside of Meetings. We could do a lot better job of painting a picture to investors/prospective customers/current customers about how we position ourselves and product suite as a platform, not a single product. - M&A: what are we doing here? We clearly have a lot of cash on the balance sheet and the Five9 deal fell through. I appreciate the diligent approach to our financials, which has undoubtedly put us in the great position we're in today, but I actually question if we're being too stringent with our cash reserves?
