Average place to work - Anonymous employee Factual Employee Review

2.0
7 July 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great coworkers, relaxing culture, and unlimited vacation. Great place for fresh grad software engineers. As a software engineer, you will learn lots of cutting edge technologies. Gil is a great, personable CEO.

Cons

The projects typically revolves around adtech industry. The recent company value they publish was rather hypercritical. I think they publish that to make senior management feel good, but a lot of people don't believe in these values. Engineers are being unfairly compensated, especially Data Engineers. Firstly, most of the Data Engineers are in fact data analyst, and receive an engineering title, and therefore expecting to be better compensated. Most of the engineers receive a market, or below market salary, and negligible share of company's liquidity, and salary adjustment does not happen often. Data Engineers aren't being well respected, in particular, fairly compensated. Salary adjustment after joining the company is rather minimal. There's very little professional training opportunity for Data Engineer. It is unlikely for a data engineer to acquire essential engineering skill after a year or two of tenureship in the company, unless one is being proactive at acquiring software skills. Non-engineering teams also aren't well respected, professionally, at the company. Bottom line: Software engineer shouldn't expect a market value compensation package, and stock option means non to minimal value. Don't come to factual as data engineer, they aren't well respected and compensated, and it is unlikely you will learn important big data technology here at factual.

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Factual Response
9y
Wow, I'm really disheartened to hear some of what you're saying. I want to talk about respect first. One of my favorite things about Factual is the wonderful and amazing team we've built here. Yes, there are a lot of super talented and creative individuals, but a high functioning team comes from something beyond that. A lot of it comes down to respect. I certainly have a ton of respect for everyone, from Sales to Data Engineering to Operations. And, I believe it is ingrained in our culture as well - so I’m surprised and sorry to hear that you don’t feel that way. We’ve recently codified our company values here (http://www.factual.com/about ). I want to point out that this was not an exercise of a management dictating an ideal that looks good on paper. Rather, this came from a large, broad committee that proactively drove a process of articulating company values. I was delighted with the result as it so closely mirrored the values that I do my best to live, and so often come up as a north star in internal meetings and discussions. But, this is a continuous improvement process, and your feedback highlights the fact that as a company, we should never be content. I hope you feel free to further communicate with your manager, with me, or through Suggestion Ox! Regarding compensation, we put a lot of time into semi-annual reviews and regular benchmarking against the market to make sure we are competitive. I’m sorry that in your case you feel overlooked. Training and development is an area in which I recognize we could do better, and we are in the process of making this more structured. As you hinted at, there are plenty of opportunities to grow and learn but it has required a little more initiative from the individual to develop new skills. I’d love to hear more about specific skills/training/development opportunities you wish you had so that we can make sure to incorporate. Gil, Founder & CEO, Factual

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Cons

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5.0
5 Mar 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Factual is the unicorn in an ever-changing tech environment! - Management listens. Reviews are taken into thoughtful consideration, improvements are made, constructive criticism is supplied to employees, and the company's growth is nonstop. - The company culture is unbelievably perfect! Of course new hires must be qualified and talented individuals, but the ideal candidate is unique, personable, teachable, and talented. - GIL ELBAZ, PEOPLE! Gil is hands-on, an active listener, and the most approachable and kind person you will ever meet. If you looked up the Perfect CEO in the dictionary, you would most certainly see Gil's face. Everything he touches turns to gold including the futures of every employee at Factual. It is truly special to have a CEO that cares about the well-being, work/life balance, and happiness of his/her employees like Gil does. -Be Yourself here! Factual celebrates individuality, diversity, and those who speak up for themselves and others. If you're not 1000% happy with any process, person, or platform, there is at least 20 ways to express your needs - anonymously or not. -We work together at Factual! My absolute favorite Factual quality is the lack of social anxiety between departments. Whether you're speaking to a new hire on the engineering team, a product manager, or the CFO, there is no tension of company hierarchy at Factual. I feel welcomed to speak to every person on my team as well as the 10+ other teams in the company.

Cons

I don't have any cons to contribute. Although if I did, they would have already been happily addressed and fixed by management.

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