Interesting industry, good supportive employer
Pros
Friendly, helpful, & relaxed culture. Smart people. The product is legit. Goldilocks size company: they have real money to spend to give us support/resources, but not so huge that red tape becomes annoying (they still act like a startup in many ways). They definitely help people develop: very good training, they surround you with resources, structure, and people who are willing to coach. Good internal mobility: colleagues have changed teams & gone into completely new types of work/career tracks, or hopped to Taboola offices in other countries. The company facilitates that. Good prospects after Taboola too. People leave for FAANG jobs all the time (also a con, wish they'd pay more to keep more of our people here). They take good care of their employees, and they don't just talk about it, they show it. Benefits are top notch and Taboola sinks a lot of money into keeping the employee contribution affordable. The health insurance is ridiculously cheap for what you get compared to other places I've worked. When the pandemic hit senior leadership went out of their way not to lay people off or cut salaries/commissions/bonuses, instead cutting vendor costs and renegotiating publisher deals that had big revenue guarantees baked in. Aside from on-site office staff, we didn't lay anyone off or cut a dollar in compensation. Meanwhile, it was a bloodbath in the rest of the ad industry. That said a LOT about the values senior leadership brings to the table. I was very impressed. Unlimited PTO and it's not the kind of place where it's frowned upon to take your time off. 3-5 weeks off per year is the official expectation. Nobody bats an eye when you take it. Just hit your number. In general, very little micromanaging of how sellers do their jobs. Nobody really asking how many calls you made or emails you sent. Just hit your number. Not a stressful sales environment. I used to find sales job listings super intimidating before coming here, but it's chill. Most people are successful, I've seen maybe 1 person get let go for poor sales performance per year I've been here, they're definitely not sacrificing half the org every year the way you hear about at other places. Very smart & savvy senior leadership, from an industry perspective. I trust them to navigate choppy waters in the ad business. They know their stuff, they're thinking ahead, and they are excellent relationship builders. HUGE confidence in the company's outlook long term. They just keep winning.
Cons
As a seller: sometimes it's a hard product to sell to bigger brands & agencies. It 100% works, our existing clients love us, but there's a gap in brand perception that you have to overcome to get them in the door. It's an obstacle for sure. Org chart can make it challenging to move up, although they seem to be thinking harder about this & trying to create new paths for more people. Sometimes that startup-type mindset can be frustrating too. We're disorganized in certain ways that make our work less efficient & less consistent. We need to grow up a bit on some internal processes/tools to suit our size. There's a fair bit of churn and it's annoying. IT people, gone. Who are my new IT folks? I don't know. Sellers leave with frustrating frequency — almost always for more pay. They've taken a big step to bring us in line with market rates this year, but my gut is they just narrowed the gap, didn't close it all the way. If you're a top performer you can get paid the way you should, but you need to come with receipts and ask for it. There's work to do on DEI. Things are much better than when I got here several years ago, but there's still a layer of male dominated senior management that's slow to adjust their thinking. Sometimes comments get made that are insensitive, sometimes worse than insensitive. Leadership from Israel is a bigger culprit than NYC, but NYC is not immune. I think there are definitely still barriers for women and minorities here. I don't think it's intentional, it's structural & based on a lack of consciousness. Doesn't make it ok. You can see the intention is there (some strong hires in HR leadership and DEI roles), but they don't always know how to meaningfully do this work. A common problem across industries I'm guessing.
