Decent tech company, great comp for Scotland, some growing pains - Senior Software Engineer Smartsheet Employee Review

4.0
31 Oct 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Genuinely cares about gender and ethnic diversity, big strides in this area. Team is growing with new greenfield products to work on with new (100% AWS focused) tech stacks. Ability to work in a lot of different areas and move around teams if you want. Edinburgh taking on more interesting and high profile things nw when it used to be quite limited after the acquisition Work life balance is good, working your 40 is fine, I've had managers push back on late meetings and tell juniors not to work silly hours when they see it. The unlimited holiday policy really is that, I've never had my manager say no. You have to go on-call, but you get a whole day back every time you are whether you have an incident or not. Management push hard for good comp changes; salary, bonus and shares have grown a lot for me every year.

Cons

It has its downsides like every "big" tech company, but most to me of those are focused around the company still being so US based, and not being so good at getting the teams working towards the same goals across four different engineering locations and lots of timezones. This means some of the US principals and distinguished engineers can be really annoying because of this from not comunicating well and early enough Also less sure how to get to principal engineer grades here vs the US. It seems easier to move to engineering manager as team grows rather than get to principal.

Explore other reviews about Smartsheet

5.0
11 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great collaborative environment and competitive

Cons

Easily overwhelmed with phone calls, chats, and emails.

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Smartsheet Response
2w
We're so happy to hear that you're happy here! Collaboration with a healthy dose of competition is always great to hear, thank you for your review!
1.0
26 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Supportive of AI tooling. I had a great manager. I heard the severance packages are great, but I left of my own volition, so I don’t have personal experience.

Cons

Complete lack of direction or management at the mid to high levels of the company in product and engineering (most everyone left or was pushed out by cronyism from the private equity acquisition). No more equity offered to employees. No opportunities for promotion. They’ve shipped or are shipping most of the core products (including the core “sheet” aka Grid app) to India and have laid off tons of employees (somewhere between 12% and 15% of the company). Upper management did the thing where they had the US developers interview tons of people out of India, and then about half a year later laid off tons US developers, including several of the people that did the interviews. Upper management said that the India teams would be working on other projects, but clearly that was a lie. They laid off people without consulting their managers, or their manager’s managers, and without knowing what team they actually worked on or what they did. So entire teams were laid off unbeknownst to them. Very quick and poor handoffs to India, if any. You will likely be working on multiple teams at once, or moved to multiple teams during your time there in short periods of time. On-call can be a nightmare. There is no culture of any kind. Basically do not work here, whether you’re out of the US, India, or Bulgaria (the main countries for developers).

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Smartsheet Response
3w
Thank you for your honesty. While we’re glad that you had a great team and the tools you needed, it’s incredibly tough to hear that other aspects of your experience were less than great. To your point about equity, we’d like to clarify that we do offer a limited equity pool with specific eligibility. That said, navigating transition is already tough, and adding in other aspects like global shifts and new leadership can make it feel even harder. We know the dust hasn’t completely settled, and we understand that we have a lot of work to do to repair employee trust and morale. We’ve set off on that journey, and we appreciate all of this feedback along the way. Thank you, and we wish you all the best in your next chapter.
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