Sonder reviews

2.7

26% would recommend to a friend

(725 total reviews)
avatar

Francis Davidson

22% approve of CEO

12% positive business outlook

Sonder has an employee rating of 2.7 out of 5 stars, based on 725 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Sonder employee rating is 30% below average for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

725 reviews
1.0
Feb 25, 2020

Run the other direction

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

A few bright, talented people, free lunch, travel perks, potentially cool product.

Cons

I know, I know. You want so hard for Sonder to be a cool place. It seems like a sexy brand. Travel. Design. A product that exists IRL. And then you get hired and realize this place has all the classic startup flaws. And then some. Arrogant founder CEO. Inexperienced execs (lots of B and C level players). Lack of strategy. Lack of vision. And you realize you didn’t get a seat on a rocket ship, you’ve gotten a seat on a piece of space junk. Something that managed to make it into orbit by burning through serious VC cash and riding the tailwinds of Airbnb and other OTAs. You realize you could forgive the company for not being what you thought and hoped it was except for one fatal flaw: The culture sucks. It’s the worst you’ve ever seen. Bullying. Mean girl stuff. Tech bros who strut around with iPhones a leather holsters like wanna-be-detectives. This 1000+ person company communicates entirely on Asana. For. Everything. There’s a blatant disregard for the environment (single-use plastics fill Sonder spaces, the company churns out tons of junk everyday with it’s throwaway lunches). And the memos - my god, this place is into memos like it’s the 1980s. In short, Sonder isn’t powered by ideas or by heart or even a belief that travel is good for the world and brings us closer. This place is about greed and money, and if that’s not the only thing that moves you, don’t take a seat on this ride.

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Sonder Response
6y
We appreciate you for taking the time to share this, and are disappointed to hear we missed the mark on delivering the experience you thought you'd have here. 2019 was a big year for us. We grew by the hundreds, all over the world. We expanded in new countries, built-on our foundation of tech and improved business processes left and right. We also learned a lot along the way — and if there's one thing we're proud to admit, it's that we know we're not perfect yet. It's why "Improve Continuously" is a core Principle of our culture and why we take feedback like yours so seriously. Please get in touch with hrbp@sonder.com. We’d love to chat more about this with you.
2.0
Dec 19, 2016

Cheap & Super hyper active mode

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You will get to see various apartments around the city you live in. They give you a discount on ther units if youw want to stay there.

Cons

The company is very cheap. They don't value a high quality product. The clients always complain about the low quality towels, sheets, and papers goods. The lack of kitchen items is horrible in each unit. Some apartments and buildings they pick are in nasty condition. All they care about is growing or rapidly adding units without developing a solid process or operation.. I have different values then them and find it pretty dumb and laughable. The business is also unregulated but cities are looking to change this and might impact their business for the future. The pay is low too.

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Sonder Response
9y
Thanks for the review - we do want to work with you and all our teams on the ground on the quality concerns you have - please do engage your manager or the COO to discuss; your views are positively heard here and will be heard 1-1.
1.0
Jul 22, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

They do hire the best, the coworkers I had in the Denver office were some of the best people I have met

Cons

Unethical, Cult-like environment created by the CEO, No consideration of work-life balance, not a product worth promoting

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Sonder Response
5y
Thank you for taking the time to leave such a detailed review of your experience, we appreciate it. There’s a lot to dig into here, but for starters we want to address a few of the main points you’ve made. We certainly couldn’t predict that the pandemic surrounding COVID-19 was coming, but we did have to make some quick pivots to protect the business. This included having to push back our Measure What Matters performance review cycle, and halt hiring for all teams as we better understood the pandemic’s impact on Sonder and the hospitality space as a whole. We did just recently complete our mid-year review cycle so now the dates and deadlines of future reviews are set, and dozens of Sonder employees earned promotions, including many on the Central Guest Services Team (formerly Guest Experience Team). The layoffs and furloughs were a necessary part of those quick pivots as well, though we are happy to share that we’ve recalled many of those individuals back to work, and have ramped up hiring again to support our critical infrastructure. Our Central Guest Services team has recently transitioned to a new, more up-to-date system (Salesforce) as well, which has and will continue to allow us to improve our support for our guests, as well as many backend constraints we faced with previous tools. We are intimately aware of the struggles our guests and employees alike faced surrounding the pandemic. We had to uphold our cancelation policy, though we did ultimately make changes to it to be more favorable for our guests. Sonder only operates in commercially zoned or multi-zoned properties, to limit disruption of residences. We have also played a big role in supporting the communities we’re in and improving the economy in some of our markets. Our service principle is of the utmost importance to us and while we still have some wrinkles to iron out, we take every measure to ensure a clean, seamless experience for our guests. Thanks again for your detailed feedback for Sonder, and we wish you the best in your future endeavors.
Viewing 19 - 21 of 725 Reviews

Glassdoor has 780 Sonder reviews submitted anonymously by Sonder employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Sonder is right for you.