A few things I wish I knew - Business Development Applause Employee Review

2.0
23 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Fully remote setup, colleagues always open to support you

Cons

Culture shifted dramatically after US management took control of the european BD team in Summer 2025 — older reviews don’t reflect what’s happening now. Onboarding is purely recorded videos. Admin tracking in Excel eats 2–3 hours a day, just so they can micromanage you. The entire EMEA go-to-market strategy is copy-pasted from the US with no market adaptation — the emphasis is on raw activity volume (AI slop messages) Coaching is absent, the Team Lead has limited cold-calling experience, which compounds the issue. AEs and BDRs have also been deliberately siloed, and leadership communication is opaque at best. Most telling: our old team that went against the new instructions was either fired or put to work on bad accounts, new employees on probation who voiced concerns about management — including the ones achieving targets — were fired or threatened with it. Talk to current EU team members before accepting an offer.

Explore other reviews about Applause

5.0
8 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The people were fantastic, and that was clearly an intentional culture choice made by both the CEO and the Chief People Officer. Having a Chief People Officer speaks to how seriously they take their culture, and it shows. It’s a very young company that (when I was there) had a post-startup feeling. With only 400 employees at the time it felt small and like a community. You would legitimately go out to lunch with coworkers and become personal friends with them outside of work. Even though it is young, it has successfully transitioned post-startup to now have a very mature software ecosystem. There are plenty of very bright people here who could easily be working for a FAANG type company or have in the past. The ops, deployment, and monitoring are also all under control. Overall, you will be contributing to a modern state of the art system here with very smart people.

Cons

I did work here pre-Covid in 2020, and they did not yet have a remote work policy. I do not know if that has changed or what it is like now, but that was the main downside. That being said, I liked actually coming into the office and having a full team there. Please also be aware that Applause is owned by Private Equity. This means that during a recession, they will certainly cut roles aggressively and do other PE things. It was not an issue while I was actually with the company, but it did lead to an abrupt ending when Covid hit.

4.0
2 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Work Life Balance is great

Cons

everyone is very nice, but it is a very sales-oriented company with some of the culture drawbacks that come with that

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