Pluspunten
Competitive compensation package, though OTE is set on targets management are ‘surprised’ if you reach. Fully comprehensive healthcare benefits. Remote-first culture, though commercial teams really are expected in at least once per week. Also a hidden con, as this is often taken advantage of meaning at times of urgency, many are often unreachable. Luckily, they have historically strong relationships with key partners which is propping them up, but these relationships are falling apart rapidly due to incredibly poor management and the naivety of sales leaders living off of past success. Some of the most skilled technical people I have ever worked with. They regularly exceed expectations, even on tight deadlines, and their ability to produce so consistently is really admirable. This however sadly does not extend to the management lines. The solutions architects have a highly respectable level of patience when being told by leadership/commercial teams with no technical understanding how long a technical implementation should take. Their positive impact often does more in driving long term success in client interactions than commercial teams do, and I believe they are severely under-appreciated in the business. Instead, the clique culture will direct their praise towards, and promote, their favourite few in the commercial teams who realistically just had deals fall into their laps and they provided no value to the engagement.
Minpunten
Extremely toxic management. It was common for Senior Leadership to publicly chastise individual team members within team meeting settings, and I even witnessed them denounce ex-employees on company-wide All Hands on multiple occasions. Ex-employees which were actually well respected across the teams, and clearly provided more value to the business than those who they highlight as role models, highlighting how out of touch the leaders are. Senior leadership’s ’open door policy’ is merely a phrase they use to encourage people to join, but in practice it is one of the most closed-door environments I have experienced. They are completely disinterested with suggestions and concerns, leaving new joiners to be advised to not ask any questions to ensure the safety of their jobs. The disconnect between sales leaders and their teams (commercially and cross functionally), as well as their key partners (with whom they are creating a bad reputation), is concerning. They provide no direction, support or ‘management’, instead focussing on their own goals and leaving individual contributors to fend for themselves with rising targets and products that are becoming increasingly uncompetitive. There are more middle managers than ICs, and line managers often have no greater insight or position of influence than their direct reports, simply serving as a further layer of abstraction from senior leadership, and as a pawn to do their ‘dirty work’. The short term is clearly prioritised over the long term, often coming at the expense of customer satisfaction, partner relationships, employee wellbeing, and future revenues. 90% of your time is spent suffocated by chasing slow internal processes or dealing with problem admin and customer issues. Maybe it is people taking advantage of the remote culture, but management often takes (literally) days to respond, and it would often take hours to hear back on urgent issues. You generally receive a response when they need something from you. If you are looking to join the commercial organisation, you will be joining under a leader who provides no clear direction and actively harms the success of your deals. Partners proactively ask to make sure they do not join calls with customers as they have a history of derailing conversations, overpromising, and have a tendency to talk at customers rather than listen to their problems. Feedback from partners regularly note that they do not enjoy working with the sales leader. They take no leadership in driving partnership engagement, they will always take but never give back, and in times where support is needed they are not around to provide it. They devoid themselves of all responsibility when things go wrong, often passing problematic deals off to individual contributors with a ‘that’s your problem now’ attitude. They will cause enormous amounts of friction between internal teams and will always point the finger of blame elsewhere rather than self reflect. While the sales team has scaled rapidly under their command, this has not translated into increased business, yet the blame ultimately is placed on ICs vs their lack of ability to lead an effective sales engine.