Great Idea Flawed by Inexperienced Leaders & Toxic Culture - Account Executive Starburst Employee Review

1.0
16 Aug 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Compelling premise disrupting 40 year old Data Warehousing dogma. Hired strong individual contributors. Affable CEO. The product works well at massive scale, but it’s a heavy lift to implement and very few clients actually have the scope and scale to use Starburst. Most that do, use the open source version successfully or AWS version (Athena).

Cons

Zero trust culture. Enterprise sellers treated like BDRs. Autonomy and creativity don’t exist. There are no inbound leads and no deals. None of the leaders have been in their position before. It’s devolved into a toxic mess. No one is hitting their numbers except for a very few. Churn wave is coming. They lied about rep productivity on my way in. Great comp plan, but 100% of $0 is $0. Not a place for Enterprise sellers at the moment.

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Starburst Response
2y
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback with us. We appreciate your recognition of our team's talent and our efforts to disrupt the industry. We take your concerns about a toxic work culture seriously, as this is not acceptable and it goes against our values and goals. Our commitment is to create a positive and inclusive environment for all our employees, and we regret that this was not your experience with us. Sales productivity is a top priority for us, and we are constantly investing in enabling and empowering our team and discovering repeatable strategies for success. We are always striving to improve and make positive changes, and we encourage you to reach out to your former HR Business Partner if you have any additional feedback to share. - Javier Molina, CRO

Explore other reviews about Starburst

5.0
20 Jan 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

While we experience the typical challenges of a growing startup, leadership at Starburst is deeply committed to learning, evolving, and improving across the board—from product to culture. I’m proud to be part of a company where your voice matters and you’re trusted to make an impact.

Cons

As with any startup, priorities can shift quickly, and you need to be comfortable adapting and pivoting. It’s not necessarily a downside—just the reality of working in a fast-moving environment.

1.0
25 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great people across all company functions Excellent Engineering org Great reference customers

Cons

High Attrition of exceptional talent Micro-management culture Poor Sales and Marketing groups Constant change in Product strategy

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