Outreach reviews

The CEO is a bully. He’s fired nearly all the sales leadership, said his go to market strategy is very strong (it’s not), said our sales woes are to be blamed on all the AEs being lazy (we’re not), and said the product is amazing (he fired the chief of product a month ago). PIPs are going out en mass. It’s all really sad. This place was amazing. The culture was amazing. Now it all seems like it was a farce.

You get the feeling that product managers, program managers, directors, and VPs are just hanging on for IPO, and they create work for others to make themselves seem valuable. I don't know how else to explain the strange lack of communication, and lack of efficiency. It's a problem because a lot of the actual technical problems go unsolved. It's frustrating when you know what needs to be done but you're stuck in a twilight zone world of google docs, spreadsheets, and meetings. There are meetings and meetings then all that gets created is a document. Then that document creates more meetings. Then no one reads the document ever again, no engineers start work, and everyone's moved on to some other initiative. Often, It took a good bit of effort to not ask others "what exactly do you *do* though?". I will say that when I spoke with the engineers, it was a breath of fresh air. They spoke in real terms about real problems and real solutions. Our meetings were productive. However, my world was surrounded by a couple dozen product managers, program managers, directors, and VPs, and it really was a surreal experience most of the time, not knowing what jargon-filled world they seemed to be living in. The product at this stage does not need this much management around it. Also, more personally, I often experienced that a week would often go by without a response from my direct supervisor. They wouldn't show up for one on ones. When I did speak with them, they were great. But then my supervisor changed without anyone informing me. One week I just saw a new calendar event for a one on one with a new manager. This new manager was also a friendly person. But at one point, after working hard, late nights, and overtime for a week to get some projects completed and shared with everyone, on the very next day, they admitted that they "aren't really familiar with what work I've been doing," and acted like that's okay. I thought at the time that "actually that is exactly what you're supposed to be familiar with". I was pretty appalled. My new manager directed me to change roles and manage a different team with about a fifteen minute warning for both me and the new team. It was awkward, needless to say. I declined the new position, since it wasn't where I can provide the most value, and there were better internal candidates for the role. Soon after, I was let go with severance. Meanwhile, lots of money is spent celebrating the successes of getting closer to unicorn status or IPO, or on expensive real estate, or hiring probably twice the amount of employees that are actually needed at this stage of a product. Everyone there was honestly a pretty good person, it seemed. But I have a feeling this company, with its funding and push toward rewarding its investors, is a castle made of sand.