CommonLit Reviews

It's taken a long time for me to decide how to talk about my time at CommonLit. I joined the product team in 2021 when it had 3 managers change. Somehow I was on a team of majority POC to eventually being the only person of color on my team except for my manager. There was absolutely no structures of support built for me or even investment in what my skills were. One manager was fine with me not moving in the org at all as I expressed what my long term career goals were and how I saw CommonLit in the picture. My one white manager who eventually became so far removed from the day to day of my team thought it was her job to tell me how to live my life and devalued all of my experience and goals as an educator, writer, and professional because she did not once look at my resume to understand what I was. I ended up getting a fellowship at a publishing house after leaving CommonLit - I finally got the respect I was craving at CommonLit, because people IN OUR LIBRARY were my peers, colleagues, and mentors in the writing world. No one invested or asked about my interests in writing or my VAST curriculum building skills. Instead I was forced to do hours of spreadsheets, reports, that the executives of the org would waive off.... and then leave the organization a month later, clearly checked out. I'm still so frustrated at how CommonLit sold itself to me as this diverse, safe place to be a young person of color from a low income background. It was the first time I'd made that much money at an entry level job, and I think they assumed my openness or commitment to "radical candor" (lol..... it's one of the most passive aggressive work environments I've ever been in) was naivety. My final manager was great but she clearly was middle management forced to go through a lot of transitions and had to clean the mess that upper management would not hold themselves accountable for. All the white managers I had do not have an ounce of backbone when it comes to standing by anti-racist ideals in the workplace. One manager even went so far as to "be friends with her direct reports" only to block me over politics on instagram.... at CommonLit, you have to drink at events, go to happy hours, and be rubbing shoulders with people to get promotions. This and your level of how much you'd do that absolutely impacted my career and how it grew and did not grow at CommonLit. Someone else here said they can't hold themselves accountably - absolutely.

Favoritism ("In" and "Out" groups) Lack of clear leadership and strategy - competing agendas among leaders Siloed teams