Nice but incompetent - Software Engineer Forem Employee Review

2.0
10 Mar 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I’ve felt conflicted, back and forth about leaving this review. Some time passed since leaving so I’m in a more suitable state of mind to write this review. There are many positive traits about Forem. The team is remote and distributed, has flexible time off, good benefits, tries to be asynchronous but often fails. And the people are very nice. I can only speak for the people I worked with, mostly other developers, but it’s a company value.

Cons

However the big cons outdo the pros. The founders are incompetent when it comes to management, envisioning a product and business that makes any sense, and executing. They never worked at an actual company before and it shows. The consequences of this are passed down to the employees. 1. Below market compensation and modest equity that will likely never pay off. If you’re a senior dev, you’ll do far better financially elsewhere for less work and headache. 2. A product with huge issues that nobody seems to want after years of development, and no roadmap to get there because nobody thinks clearly. This all comes with crazy customer expectations and product development timelines. 3. Regularly throwing out weeks of work due to lack of coherent vision between the founders, product management, and a low quality group of managers more interested in playing politics and raising their own stock doing dumb pointless organization tasks instead of chipping in and doing the actual work. I can’t make this point any clearer. Grandiose ideas get tossed around casually by leadership in meetings that don’t make any sense and then get scrapped after we’ve already spent weeks working on them. 4. And fundraising seems unstable? Not sure we get any real transparency on this, concerning given everything I’ve said so far.

Explore other reviews about Forem

1.0
21 Apr 2022
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Remote work culture that was globally distributed. - Benefits.

Cons

Now that some time has passed since my departure I think I'm in a place where I can stick to the core points. - There was a high rate of turnover. People came and went especially in leadership. Forem spent considerable resources hiring outside people as opposed to promoting within. And even those people seemed to turnover quickly (less than a year). - The compensation was below the current market rates. If you're an engineer you could easily make more money with less work elsewhere. - There was a lack of management and vision. The overall goal of the company was changing often and it was uncommon for those changes to be clearly communicated. - The morale declined significantly. With the previously mentioned turnover and frequent changes in the vision, the morale seemed to be very low. People were largely disengaged. The organizational structure of departments and titles changed often and that made it difficult to move up.

5
1.0
25 July 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Peers in which I worked alongside were absolutely awesome!

Cons

In day-to-day interactions, I witnessed instances of unconscious bias and microaggressions that were swept under the rug rather than being addressed. Instead of fostering an environment where employees felt comfortable bringing their whole selves to work, certain comments and behaviors perpetuated a culture where individuals from underrepresented groups felt sidelined and unheard. When I attempted to raise concerns about these disparities, the response from management was often dismissive, creating an atmosphere of fear and apprehension that stifled open dialogue. Instead of embracing constructive criticism and striving for improvement, the company chose to protect its image rather than addressing the root causes of these issues.

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