WARNING FOR SALES & UNDERWRITING CANDIDATES:
Firstly, the "sales" titles are extremely lofty. You are either an account executive (glorified customer success manager) OR you are an account manager (a channel partner manager).
"AEs" simply call existing customers asking if they want to renew. This is like shooting fish in a barrel. This will not teach you anything about sales, so expect to carry nothing to your next role except industry knowledge. If you want to become a career salesman/saleswomen, good luck in your future interviews.
Account managers: You will deal with the worst channel partners, ever. They have no respect for you or your time and expect to be answering the phone 70+ times a day answering redundant, silly questions about their deals. This job is miserable, tiring, and hard. You have little control over your quota, although when times are good, it's pretty simple; however, when times are tough, good luck driving more business as most options are out of your control.
Underwriting: Technical, challenging, burdened with risk, and sometimes rewarding.... however, there is tremendous pressure to review deals in a timely manner while being extremely diligent.
All account managers and underwriters are miserable. You are drained because you are constantly pressured by FF's partners to push deals out the door with unrealistic expectations. AMs are pressured constantly from immature, unprofessional channel partners which forces them to pressure the UWs for updates (they love that). Enjoy taking lunch? Have fun coming back to 20+ missed calls and wild emails from your partners asking for updates in all sorts of manners.
I cannot speak for other departments... however, it felt like everyone else was having a pleasant time enjoying the "positive" culture. Meanwhile if you were in sales or UW, you oftentimes felt dead inside and felt like the organization did not properly care for your state of being. You were expected to be extremely positive and if you expressed anything else, you felt like there was an invisible target on your back.
During my time at FF, I also experienced inappropriate comments from my managers during outings. Some of these folks still work there and I wouldn't be surprised if this culture still persists.
Leaving the company was the best thing that ever happened to me and to my career. If you want to start or progress your career in this fields, this is not a proper organization to do so.
Summary:
- toxic positivity work culture
- toxic partners
- immature managers
- cliquey culture
- horrible work/life balance - always pressured to work (externally)
- frequent mass layoffs
- sales/UW experience stunts your career growth outside of FF (no applicable skills)
- not recession proof, if the market is bad, your job security is at risk
