Culture – This largely depends on the department and office that you are hired in to. Product, Marketing, and Engineering have solid and collaborative cultures organization-wide. The Berlin employees have a much stronger culture than the San Francisco/Denver offices. Remote culture is nonexistent. If you are considering a sales role, there is a top-down fear culture given the pressures of an impending exit. Expect stressed and forgetful middle-management (i.e. frequent, urgent calls to repeat deal notes, regardless of detail in SalesForce), low employee advocacy, and no career progression discussions.
Feedback – Unless feedback (product, process, pricing) comes from upper leadership themselves, there is no appetite to listen and no desire from middle management to support their teams in creating positive change. There is a wealth of knowledge and a pulse of the market on the front lines, but only a preference to keep heads in the sand, hold the course, and hope that things get better.
Low Ability to Succeed - Contentful leaned in heavily to hiring through the worst stages of the pandemic to capitalize on the shift to digital experiences and eCommerce. Unfortunately, with no support or forethought around lead generation, this resulted in less qualified leads spread among the now overstaffed sales organization, where only a very select few came close to hitting their numbers. When “outbounding” is considered a bad word and there is sole reliance on inbound opportunities, your success depends on the book of business that you’re given, luck of the draw with round-robin lead distribution, and the relationships you are able to build with partner managers, who hand-select their favorite reps to work opportunities.
Career Progression – Related to the above, there is little to no opportunity to progress your career (let alone be granted pay raises) unless you are hitting your number. Even then, middle management is protective of being able to hit their numbers so are hesitant to promote even the best members of their team.
