Pros
Okay.. Before I begin let me start by saying that this review is from the perspective of a sales development role. I can speak to that role and I have some insight into the lives of Account Executives. I have heard good things about other roles such as Quni, marketing, ect. but if thats your role this review may not be for you. In lue of transparency let me start this review by saying that this is not a terrible atmosphere to work in, Qualtrics does have a lot going for it. There are many positives worth noting. The people you work with day to day are awesome. Out of almost 60 SDR's I can not think of a single individual that isn't a "good" person. I also felt the same "good person" vibe from the majority of the leadership. Direct leaders (SDR Team leads/AE team leads) all seem to truly care about the people under them. The perks (especially the food) are awesome. Lunch's are really nice, all you can eat and appear to be on a monthlyish rotation. As we've grown we started incorporating other things like a 2 dollar dessert day on fridays and a $5 dollar food option on tuesday. Snacks run out but if you care about that then you dont have the attitude this place is looking for and it wont be for you. I'll touch more on the in office perks later. The Autonomy is awesome. They really do trust you here. If you are hitting your metrics you can essentially do what you want within reason. If you want to take an hour to go to the gym in the middle of a work day they are okay with it, as long as you hit your metrics. They are also pretty flexible with PTO. The product is awesome. We easily have the most momentum in the industry. That is not to say that there aren't portions of our product that others dont do better, but we are the most exciting company in the industry and the buzz around our conference and product updates are pretty nice. No matter what I say in the cons portion, I do think Qualtrics (as a company) has a lot going for it and if I could invest money into it I would.
Cons
With all the positives though, this place is not without its negatives. First, and by far the most important is that leadership is making it INCREDIBLY hard to hit there numbers as an SDR. Out of a group of almost 60, there are maybe 3-4 people that are hitting there metrics month after month. Qualtrics leadership have come to the conclusion that the SDR's need to produce 2 opportunities per rep per week (which is more than doubling our output). So far, the way they are attacking this is by doubling SDR quotas. When I was hired on I had a target of 8 opps per month. By Q4 of this year it is projected to be at 26. As of right now they have upped it to 18. They are trying to rationalize this by saying that we will be working more closely with marketing to produce more targeted campaigns (these have yet to prove that they convert any more than normal prospecting) and that we will have new tools (outreach, drift) that will allow us to work more efficiently (AKA make more calls)... While i'm sure the new tools help some, they do not double the output of a team that already are hitting there targets at an abysmal rate. This leads me to my next con. Career Trajectory - one reason I joined Qualtrics was the fact that you can climb the ladder really quickly, that is no longer the case. As an SDR you are now expected to be in the role for multiple years on average. From a company perspective this makes sense because you will produce better AE's, but when I was hired on I was promised a timeline of 4-9 months to become a AE1, that is now off the table. A daunting problem for the SDR floor right now is promotions. To be able to promote between SDR roles or from an SDR to an AE role you need to average hitting your metrics over a 6 month period. This is a problem for everyone as, given the new metrics, virtually no one on the team is on pace to hit there metrics over an elongated timeframe. It is hard to move your career forward when you dont promote, and you cant promote if you dont hit your metrics. Another important note is that AE1's and AE2's are in a similar position where it is difficult to hit metrics. I have literally seen AE1's break down because they feel that not even an enterprise rep could succeed with the book of businesses they were given. TACOS - for anyone interviewing here you should learn TACOS, it's our internal value system. Transparency, All In, Customer Obsessed, One Team and Scrappy.... A few issues with this: From a transparency standpoint, there are some issues. One example that was recently shared with me is that for months everyone on the SDR floor was told that their variable compensation was completely based on opportunities sources. We were told this by all of our direct managers, and it was a lie. 85% of our compensation was based on opps and 15% was based on what they expected us to produce in closed revenue. Very few individuals in outbound actually produce closed revenue, so in essence that meant we weren't getting paid what we were told we were... There are other minor examples but transparency around things that will effect you are sometimes difficult to come by. There is a monthly "ask me anything" with leadership and the other leadership which is nice, but you need to ask the hard questions, and often times you dont know that you need to ask it (like with the compensation example)... In office perks are beginning to be really frowned upon depending on which team your with. Bringing your dog to work has become universally looked down upon to the point that multiple people have been pressured into leaving them home. There are also (unconfirmed but understandable) rumors that people have been denied promotions because they bring there dog to work and that is viewed as making them less productive. Other in office perks like ping pong / basketball / pool ect have become taboo to the point that you rarely see people using them during the day. Thats not to say they are not available or nice.. they are.. but dont expect to use them every day without being looked down upon. To sum up, its a place filled with nice people but be careful and ask the right questions before you accept an offer. If career growth is your goal, be worried about what is happening here right now. Dont plan on hitting your on target earnings, and be weary about what the recruiting team tells you because I know myself and most other people I talked to were lied to during our recruitment process. This was written May of 2018
