How is gloss genius culture wise and pay wise? A recruiter reached out to me about an EM role recently. Appreciate the help. TC 580K #software #swe #engineering
Culture is good. Pay is nothing close to what you're currently getting. DM for any specifics
The company is profitable, though I personally would like some insight to what extent since I joined earlier this year. We have had some one-man operations to save millions, and also hire decently from overseas to offset general costs, but we also depend on a lot of SaaS that does not always scale nicely. The said one-man operations will happen less, because these people have been chased out of the company for not adhering to process. In fact your EM role might be to backfill the manager most known for chasing away high performing “just do it” people in favor of more compliant, process-driven engineers. He left abruptly last month, probably to focus more on his Twitter addiction (he’s kind of a big deal there, as he would point out any chance he could). The company’s leadership is generally pretty good and I believe they make the right decisions and legitimately care, but they’re hampered in my eyes from being too far away from day-to-day for too long, or for never having done lower-level work at all. Not entirely bad; they in sum make the right choices. Remains to be seen how they operate when the company is doing bad though. It’s a comfortable, fully remote, generally undemanding environment. This creates some sluggishness and diminished urgency in folks, but it’s not so bad. There is not much crunch time. It’s probably ideal if you have kids. The salary can be pretty fat (your EM position almost surely commands 240K+ base salary), but your total comp will be cut in half since there are no bonuses or any other form of income aside from base. You have to use a Mac, and there is no choice in the matter. Not so bad, but just saying because a person just quit because she hated it and said it hampered her productivity too much. We raise decent rounds and investors are pretty bullish on us (we are default alive, as they say). We have aspirations to grow beyond the limited scope our software provides. But I am not sure we have an IPO or any other liquidity event in our future. Our space is generally small with customer base, our product is not hands-down the best compared to our competitors (we’re equal or marginally better), and while we are above water and not going to die any time soon, we don’t have the kind of culture to take over the world with a clear moonshot vision. Or if we do, it hasn’t been communicated out. You know how some places have a kind of zealousness and missionary sense of purpose? Not here. My assessment: come here if you are burnt out or need some breathing room to spend time on parenting or marriage. Maybe come here to build out your resume (“0 to 1”) and expand scope of responsibilities, or get experience in a successful vertical SaaS startup. If you’re ambitious or impatient, you probably won’t be a good culture fit. Good luck in your choice
Well, you put a lot more effort into this than I did. I think everything you said is fair. I'm not sure which EM or who quit, but then again I just come in, do my work and clock out.
Great responses, thanks for sharing both of you
how did it go for you? I will also be going for an EM loop, any insight you can share like what questions/areas are covered, to help prepare for it?
With 580k TC, I can’t imagine they’d pay you anywhere near that