Forward reviews

This is a 7 day a week job. This is like working for an Elon company. This is check your slack from 6am to 9pm, no matter where you are. Anniversary dinner? Better be on Slack. If your kid has a birthday and your boss needs something on a Sunday, your kid is not getting a birthday party if you want to keep your job. The pay is bad to average for the industry, and employees are expected to sacrifice everything for the CEO's vision, but you're not getting rewarded for it, now or in the future. They claim to be bringing the best healthcare to billions of people for free. Really what they are doing is bringing primary care with no proven improvements in patient outcomes to a few thousand rich tech employees, at the most expensive prices the market will bear. The things the forward teams do with data and patient trust make me incredibly uncomfortable from a legal/ethical/moral standpoint. I wish external auditors were actually more competent and could see how PHI is actually treated in this place. The way customers are treated, particularly if they cancel their membership proves that this is a profit first platform to turn the CEO into a billionaire, not a revolutionary high tech way to improve health outcomes for patients.

While the mission is inspiring, the leadership team uses it to manipulate you to work crazy hours. It’s not uncommon that you’re expected to work until 8pm, respond to slacks at 10pm and work weekends. It’s nearly impossible to have a healthy work-life balance. They also require everyone to go in 5 days a week with zero flexibility to work from home. There’s a toxic intimidation culture that stems from the top: the CEO will wake up one day with an idea and force the entire company to stop what they’re working on and shift gears. He often yells at employees, and justifies it by saying that “rebuilding healthcare isn’t easy.” He aspires to be like Elon Musk and has said so during all hands. Other leads don’t have much of a say, very few are known to push back on him. Most of them are just yes men and women. Almost everyone who works there (outside of a handful of folks) are completely miserable. There’s even an alumni slack group that’s pretty negative about their experience at Forward. And it’s quite sad to see how much talent Forward has wasted and just how many people feel burnt after leaving there. I’d think twice before joining this company. The salary and benefits (including medical!) are quite terrible. The mission is inspiring but once you weigh everything I’m not sure it’s worth it.