Hiring: for anyone looking to join Highfive, Highfive will sell you promises that they cannot deliver. Make sure to get everything in writing. For example: if you are being promised a path to another position make sure you have the roadmap to that position in writing, otherwise, nothing will happen. I am not going to say that Highfive is lying, but, I hit the time requirement they wanted in the position as well as the markers that they set afterwards for the position and I still was denied entry. Also, there's NO San Francisco location. On the website/hiring it says that there are positions open for San Fran, but we do not have a San Fran office. This is mainly to try and get recruits into the pipeline with hopes that they can persuade them to join the Redwood City office until there's a SF office (if it ever happens).
Training: there is none. Plain and simple. You will be learning from your colleagues. The managers do not have time to train you and you are expected to figure your way through everything. I have seen 1 person fired because he couldn't get ramped fast enough with 0 training. I have seen someone have a breakdown because there was 0 training and support provided. People in management positions rarely have the expertise to actually train others.
Work/life balance: maybe this is different for other positions, but expect not to get ahead unless you are pulling 10-12 hour days. I remember one of my first few week of work I was criticized because I would take a lunch. Essentially, you do not get time to leave and have a lunch and are expected to either 1) sit at your desk and eat and do your job or 2) if you do leave; do your job remotely and be tethered to your job.
Culture: wow, culture here sucks now. This used to be a fun place to work, but new leadership has come in and turned Highfive into a wasteland. Highfive does not know what it wants to be. It is a Startup that wants to act like an Enterprise, but only has Startup budget and Startup clients. Unless you are #1 on the team you need to be sitting at your desk all day. People are scared to get up and take a lunch or go on walks because of the perception it will send to management. There used to be fun/cool company events that would happen, but now that is rare. Or, Highfive is too cheap to spend money on something cool (probably because Startup and low on funding). Company events used to feel like a celebration, but now they feel like a lame excuse to raise moral.
Turnover: In the past 4 months, 4 people have been fired. In the last 2 quarters, Highfive lost 80% of their Senior Account Executives + 1 Account Executive that had been there for at least over a year. This month, they lost 33% of their Marketing team. Highfive has now implemented a Churn & Burn-like culture. I am uncertain how many engineers have left since they rarely announce when people leave. Simply put, everyone is jumping ship.
Product: the product is simple, but cool. Unfortunately there's not enough engineers in place to really keep pace with the other major competitors either due to 1) lower pay or 2) no location in San Francisco. Also, Highfive used to be cool and easily differentiated but now it is trying to take on the competitors head on. This makes prospects question the value of the service b/c, honestly, its just video conferencing. If you're priced the same and generally accomplish the same thing, then why Highfive? Highfive also thinks that it is a premium product (like Apple) so it has structured its pricing model accordingly. It will not talk to prospective clients with less than 10 users (because you are forced to buy a bundle of 10 licenses) unless you are a company with a lot of employees. Upper management will not listen to the feedback of others because it knows better than everyone else.
TLDR: Highfive feels like it is sinking. You owe Highfive - eat, breathe, think, sleep Highfive.
