Your job is not safe here - High turnover rate within a year - Anonymous employee Smile.io Employee Review

1.0
2 June 2020
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great coworkers. Great location in KW. An interesting product that can get your foot in the door at other more established companies (if you manage to keep your job after a year).

Cons

Read the 1 & 2 star reviews. If you get a job here just know that once your 1 year work anniversary is coming, the management team is reviewing you in their private slack channels / meetings and whether or not they like you and want to keep you (aka are you one of their favourites on a personal level - not based on your performance / skillsets) and they will fire you without batting an eye. I saw so many good people let go with little to no explanation from management, creating fear and affecting morale. Lack of leadership skills in terms of basic communication, so you will have NO IDEA that you did something wrong (especially if they're already thinking of letting you go) so you're not given a chance to improve or you're on a team where you're micromanaged to no end. Plus, founders came straight from university and haven't worked at other companies so they have no idea how to manage and communicate effectively. All they know is how to fire people and start the hiring process again. Most of the 5 star reviews that you see are from current employees that were told to write good reviews and give a 5 star rating to make the company look better. I wouldn't be surprised if you see another flood of 5 star ratings to cover the current trend of 1 stars.

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Smile.io Response
6y
Thanks for the feedback - I know it's not easy to provide, and I appreciate it. Unfortunately growing a company in an ever-changing landscape and market means that we've had to let go of people along the way. These reasons are always either financially-influenced or performance-related. I'm sorry your time here came to an end sooner than you were hoping, but I can guarantee that there is no consideration of tenure time when making these types of decisions. I also acknowledge that this is my first company out of university, I'm eager to learn from my mistakes, and more than willing to build up the skills that the company needs from me over time. Feedback like this helps me to do that, so thanks again for that. If you'd like to chat more about any of this 1:1 then please feel free to reach out any time.

Explore other reviews about Smile.io

5.0
13 Aug 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The entire team pull in the same direction and stuff gets done to such a high standard. Everyone works hard and is incredibly talented at their job. It's an inspiring place to work.

Cons

I've had no bad experience or cause for concern

1
3.0
13 Oct 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Colleagues are incredibly smart and capable, a joy to be around. Great work-life balance and perks. Really good about helping employees explore different interests in different departments. The head of merchant success is extremely competent.

Cons

Over a single year, 3 executives (heads of product, engineering, and people) were booted or left...one even resigned on the spot. None were backfilled, and the cofounders took on their roles instead so they wouldn't continue to get pushback from upper management. The company can't progress because of the brick wall the cofounders put up based on their experiences as a web agency 12 years ago.

8
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