Definitely not what was advertised - Anonymous employee Fictiv Employee Review

1.0
6 Apr 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The IC’s and middle management at this company are wonderful, they share their knowledge and they genuinely want to see you succeed. You’ll definitely learn a lot when you start at Fictiv and as other people have said, you’ll make lifelong friends. But, that’s about it.

Cons

Where do I even begin. A lot of other recent reviews have eloquently described a lot of the mess we’ve had to endure working at Fictiv. How the company continues to justify the Colin Kaepernick poster and keeping a reported sexual harasser as a higher up, I will never understand. We say we’re a startup so we can get away with having no diversity practices and questionable interview processes and we make no effort to improve. As other reviewers have mentioned, one of the worst offenders is the COO. She puts down women every chance she gets and will sabotage your career if she feels threatened by you in any way. The C suite in general refuses to take constructive criticism and will defend their bad choices by reminding us that we’re a startup and it’s normal to have growing pains. There is no forum within the company to provide anonymous feedback and that’s likely why Glassdoor has become an outlet for many of us. Like I mentioned previously, working at Fictiv will teach you a lot. But you’ll also be intensely overworked and underpaid. I’ve heard multiple instances of women getting paid significantly less than their male counterparts and then being punished when they bring this up with VPs. Regardless of how unfair this all seems, every chance he gets, Dave will tell you that you should be grateful. But for what you might ask. For free lunches, a $250 stipend each month, and the opportunity to put all your time and energy into a company that seems to be going backwards in its DE&I practices. Not to mention the HR team at Fictiv is just there for show. They will gaslight you at every turn and make you feel like incidents you report are somehow caused by you. One of the selling points of Fictiv for employees continues to be guided expertise and getting to work with intelligent people. This is not the case. The sales team works incredibly hard to understand manufacturing but the fact is it’s tough to talk to engineers about engineering when you yourself don’t understand. And that is by no means the fault of the sales people. Fictiv takes zero initiative in training their people. And this means that people on the manufacturing team and the software team with multiple degrees in advanced sciences are spending their day explaining the most basic things over and over again. I want to emphasize here that the sales people are always open to learning and pick up complex concepts remarkably quickly. But Fictiv invests time and money into writing marketing content that nobody reads and throwing more bodies, rather than resources, at the problem. First and foremost remember that Fictiv is a manufacturing company. This industry is not welcoming to women and people of color and Fictiv doesn’t make an effort to change or improve that. The stock photo of a generic African American woman on their website and their specific highlighting of “diverse people”, many of whom don’t even work at the company anymore, proves that. They will continue to say they’re working on it but there won’t be any concrete changes. Older employees (people who have been there a while) are condescending and rude and will second guess your every word. If you are early in your career and looking for some solid development and experience in the industry, do yourself a favor and look for a different job. They’ll probably pay you better too.

Explore other reviews about Fictiv

5.0
2 Feb 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

This is hands down the best place I’ve worked in my career. The culture is thoughtful and supportive, leadership genuinely cares about people, and You are surrounded by incredibly smart, driven teammates. We move fast, which keeps the work challenging and exciting, and I’ve grown more here than anywhere else. It’s a place where you’re trusted, pushed to do your best work, and supported along the way.

Cons

We can move to fast for some people

2.0
8 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Remote-work and some cool customers

Cons

Pretty much everything else. Horribly toxic sales culture

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