employer cover photo
employer logo
employer logo

FluentStream Technologies

Is this your company?

FluentStream Technologies Software Devloper II reviews

2.0

Be the first to recommend this company

(1 total review)

Kerrin Parker

Not enough data to show CEO approval

Reviews by job title

1 review
2.0
Feb 14, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Firstly, “Unlimited PTO”, is something more and more companies are starting to do. Note “unlimited” doesn’t mean “unlimited” but it means “be an adult” if you need time you can take time but make sure you are moving the company's mission forward (get stuff done). Pay is decent, perhaps a little on the lighter side of the scale but not bad. Their CEO seems like a great guy, as you can imagine, his schedule is always full but the few times I got to interact with him. I got the feeling he had a genuine interest in what I was up to both in and out of work.

Cons

However the same cannot be said about their CTO, Chief of Staff or Director. The CTO is European (my bringing this up will make sense in a moment) and is very opinionated technically and politically. He will often change the direction he wants a project to go, seemingly at least once a week. Giving the feeling that he just read about “a cool new thing” and that should be the focus, until he reads a different article and wants to put a full stop and use this “other new thing”. Redo the work, but the expectations for a deadline haven’t moved. He also enjoys having weekly meetings where we all “hangout”, but by “hangout”, I mean he likes to find a topic and assign that topic to an employee to present to everyone at the next meeting. These are not “work” things. It might be things like: * “why does the US use the Imperial system, instead of the Metric system” while he then provides commentary during the presentation about how “dumb Americans are”. * watching a movie (on your own time) and then present a book report style synopsis on said movie. * Or use the time for “discussions”, Ranting about one employee’s shirt choices for having the American flag visible on the shoulder, saying “Those who enjoy flags, don’t deserve them” ironically while flying the Union Jack behind him while saying such. * Or finding one employee who drives an old truck (because it was cheap to buy, he put a lot of work into fixing it and understanding the inner-working to keep it running). But it doesn’t matter what you can afford, you should be buying a new EV and you're a horrible person for not doing so. Pushing colleagues to jump in on the bandwagon of shaming that individual, in order to "align" with the CTO. Their Chief of Staff would sit in these meetings and just nod his head instead of stepping in, when employees were visibly and obviously shook. I say this not because I felt that they were but because the majority of us would often all talk “off the wire” about how uncomfortable it was but often default to “we just need to play ball” to keep our jobs. During the height of the BLM movement we had an interview with a potential employee. He saw one of our employees mentioning BLM in a status. The interviewee said something to the effect of “I can appreciate it and understand it, but it's all over the place and a bit of sensory overload. I really just want a job where I can focus on work”, he was not hired and in our debriefing there was a lot of “he is probably a racist” don’t you agree? We don’t want “those people here”, do we? Where the options you have are to agree or appear to be a problem. Some folks apparently don’t understand that you can be for something and still be overwhelmed by it. The Director when promoted to this position became very much a “I was promoted here so I must be the smartest person”, but much like the CTO can’t be bothered to make meetings because they are too busy hanging out and chumming it up. But when deadlines get missed, it falls back on the developers.

avatar
FluentStream Technologies Response
3y
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience with FluentStream. We value all of our current and former employees’ feedback, so we appreciate you being candid during your review. We’re also proud of all the pros you have mentioned such as the discretionary PTO policy, fair pay, and having a great CEO. We’ll address some of the challenges you mentioned in hopes it can provide better clarity for prospective employees. - We are a rapidly-growing organization with big aspirations. This creates unique obstacles and challenges that can be frustrating for sure, but also super fun and rewarding to overcome. We try to attract Streamers that share in this growth mindset. - It goes without saying, but the behaviors you describe speaking about politics in the workplace is completely unacceptable. We are deeply committed to diversity & inclusion. There’s a reason our #1 company value is We’re All in This Together. At FluentStream, we are committed to building an environment where our employees feel included, valued, and heard. Our belief is that a strong commitment to diversity, inclusion, equity, and belonging enables us to move forward with our mission. Based on your feedback, we are working to facilitate spaces where any Streamer can feel comfortable sharing your experience so we can understand how to improve your situation and that of the other team members you described in this review. In the meantime, our CEO would be happy to speak directly with you (please email hr@fluentstream.com if you would like to take him up on it!). - Your suggestion about the CEO meeting with more team members is noted. Despite our best efforts to meet regularly with all company meetings, we know that we can grow in this area so that he can hear firsthand how employees feel. - Building and maintaining connections and culture in a remote environment is a challenge that many companies face. At one time, we did try introducing levity to our weekly team meeting by having a team member briefly present on a random, non-work related topic. For many people, these were entertaining and sparked discussion, for others this fell flat. We stopped doing these around two years ago. Thank you for coming forward and sharing your feedback. It’s important to hear all perspectives, even (especially) when they’re critical or hard to share.

Glassdoor has 52 FluentStream Technologies reviews submitted anonymously by FluentStream Technologies employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if FluentStream Technologies is right for you.