As with other awkward 12 year-old companies, there are serious growing pains. And lots of contradictions, which is also common among companies like this. What’s less tolerable, is cruelty. Even worse is thinly-veiled cruelty by people who have no business working with other people, let alone managing them. Morale is horrible, there’s little internal trust, performance reviews and engagement surveys vague. You'll write a performance summary in January and get feedback on your performance in early April. HR writes long emails that no one understands and then spends a lot of time in meetings clarifying the long emails. Employees are either working their tails off or hiding in the woodwork, scared of saying anything mildly controversial. Or sitting in DE&I meetings. It’s not arsenic-in-the-drinking-water-level workplace toxicity, more like a low-level poisoning and the doctor says you have cancer but because it was detected early you have a good chance of fighting it. Cons/Red Flags/Advice: Red flag #1/Advice: Series E funding is complete and Formlabs is still private. Founders and rest of the C-team say they want an exit, however, they retain control and get as much outside money as possible without giving too much. Smart? Probably. But as an employee, chances are your stock options are worthless. Chances of going public or getting bought are slim to none. Red flag #2/Advice: Don’t be fooled by the $150 million 2021 funding round. This is a very cheap company. And there is no methodology to spending money, hiring or otherwise. No data-based decision-making whatsoever. You’ll be repeatedly told there’s no money for that but when you dig deeper you realize that most decisions are made by whimsy. Red flag #3: There’s no vision, there’s no strategy, there’s no mission. The company has yet to define who its customers are and who it wants its customers to be. Red flag #4: DEI&I: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. C-team and HR speak about wanting more diversity. However, there’s no cultural dedication to it and efforts are a mess. You get the sense there’s outside pressure from investors to increase the percentage of non youngish white males. What it means is that if you’re not a youngish white male, your chances of getting hired or promoted are higher. What it means is that you can almost completely neglect your job, though show up to every DE&I meeting and you’re almost unfireable. What it means is that Formlabs is run by youngish white males with low emotional IQs who are so intent on proving that they’re not Silicon Valley bros that they don’t realize they’re just as bad - if not worse - than Silicon Valley bros. People who don’t deserve promotions get them. Resentment reigns supreme, trust is low and the people who get said promotions are often in over their heads and set up to fail. Global expansion plans are fluff, everything is Somerville USA-centric, cultural and otherwise, down to the embarrassing memes during painful worldwide quarterly meetings. Red flag #5: Job titles are confusing. It could be an attempt to be different or an attempt to confuse people so they have no idea what their market value outside of Formlabs is. Engineers are forced to sell, salespeople are forced to navigate ridiculous spreadsheets, what goes on in business development is top secret. Red flag #6/Advice: Job descriptions don’t mean anything. Which is okay if you love flexing beyond your role, less okay if your twice yearly review is based on murky expectations and even murkier feedback. When you apply for a job here, copy the description from the posting and keep it in a safe place. Your responsibilities will change and you will need to pivot, however, whether you’ll get recognition is questionable. Whether you’ll be stretched thin to the point of burnout to compensate for people leaving and open positions not being filled is more likely. Red flag #7: Sales and revenue are dirty words. Formlabs is a company run by MIT engineers and Harvard quants that see marketing and sales as necessary evils. This will probably never change. Marketing, sales and product teams are revolving doors. Siloes are so bad that marketing and sales fight fiercely over budget and constantly point fingers vs actually accomplishing important goals. There are growing teams of MBA quants hired to keep marketing and sales in check with reports that only make sense to the MBA quants. And yet Salesforce breaks several times a month, your boss blames it on Salesforce the company and you find out there hasn’t been a Formlabs Salesforce administrator in years. Advice: If you’re a Salesforce administrator, Formlabs desperately needs you.
