Pros
On the surface this company markets themselves as the best place you could ever work at. The company will make you feel that they care about the wellbeing of all their employees and that they have an open door policy to show that they are actively listening and willing to resolve any issues/concerns that you may have. They constantly remind you that you are welcome to talk to anyone in the People team (their version of HR), any of the Execs or even the CEOs. This is all towards their goal of making Ooni the best place to work. You will have 1:1 weekly sessions with your line manager as well as quarterly reviews to discuss you progress and address any issues/concerns. The company runs anonymous quarterly feedback surveys for them to analyse any trends and identify any areas for improvements. Things like Summer Fridays (half days on Fridays for July & August) and a 5 week paid sabbatical for every 5 years of service arose from these quarterly surveys. They represent themselves as a company who cares about their staff and their mental and physical wellbeing because the goal is to make Ooni the best place to work and give you free pizza. So it seems like they really care and they want to hear what you have to say to improve things right? So then why do so many employees (current or ex) come onto Glassdoor to write anonymous negative reviews (where the majority of them have common themes)?
Cons
This is because despite the amount of feedback the company receives from staff on a regular basis, the problems and issues that arise from there are largely ignored. If you don’t go the anonymous route, you’re met with the stock answer ‘Speak to your Line Manager’. Management hopes that with the passage of time and through pushing out false toxic positivity, this will be enough to make all the problems go away rather than admit their mistakes and fight the issues head on. Or perhaps for them, it is just a way to highlight who the ‘problem’ people are. We have been told before that if we don’t like it here then we can leave so that we don’t ruin the fun for everyone else. You have to wonder why there are so many negative Glassdoor reviews despite all the feedback we already have to regularly give. This is because people are tired of not being heard and this is the last resort to warn others who are thinking of joining Ooni to look beyond the pretty marketing claims. People are fed up and this is evident in the high staff turnover especially in the Product team. They are leaving faster than they can replace them. Working at Ooni can eventually drain you if you are not constantly bowing down to the Heads of Departments or Execs and their whims. Most of the time we’re all running around like headless chickens not knowing which direction we’re meant to go in because it changes all the time. The Product Roadmap constantly changes with the higher ups telling us we need to launch every product ASAP because leadership haven’t actually sat down and thought about the plan long term logically and how it will actually be delivered with the resources we have. That’s right, the staff are called ‘resources’ - we’re nothing more. There is no such thing as “best idea wins”. It’s an illusion to make you think that they value anything you have to say. At Ooni you are told to jump and your response should only be “how high?” No one wants to hear you ask, why are we jumping? Or they might say - I agree, but keep jumping for now until we figure it out.