Look elsewhere - Product Designer TruGolf Employee Review

Upper management try hard for the company to succeed and make great products for their customers. Major props to the CEO/CFO who I got the sense cares even more about his staff than his own paycheck. I have heard the CEO will put his paychecks back into the company just to make payroll during hard times.

The company used to have smug employees but the good one out weigh the bad ones.

I spent several years at TruGolf, and while things started with a lot of promise and optimism, my experience unfortunately became disappointing over time. Any “pros” that once existed have basically disappeared now.

As other reviews have pointed out, favoritism seems to be an ongoing issue. From what I saw, those with personal connections to management or executives tended to have an easier time getting ahead, which made it tough for hard work to truly stand out. Meanwhile, it felt like other dedicated or long-time employees were always under a microscope for even the smallest things. It’s a bit of a “one set of rules for some, and another for others” kind of situation. For many of us who have tirelessly dedicated hundreds (sometimes thousands) of overtime hours to this company over the years, it was rough to always see the accolades and rewards only appear to find their way to a certain privileged few. When it came to working with the VP of creative development, public interactions seemed encouraging, and there was an appearance of openness to feedback. But behind the scenes, decisions didn’t always match that collaborative tone. This kind of inconsistency made it hard to know where things actually stood, creating confusion and hurting trust. Priorities often felt like they were shifting without explanation, leaving many of us in the dark or unsure about what was expected of us. Feedback often felt like discipline instead of constructive support. For example, it was common for management to over-promise on features that hadn’t been fully discussed with the artists or developers, creating unreasonable expectations. When employees voiced concerns about these situations, it was often met with resistance rather than open dialogue. At times, some individuals in management seemed quicker to avoid accountability rather than address the potential management issues. Yet, despite working extra-long days and mandatory unpaid overtime to meet these expectations, discussing compensation was frowned upon, and some employees were even cautioned against it. Overtime was usually dismissed as just “part of the job” rather than something fairly compensated, and raises or benefits were frequently delayed. Even some of the top performers have gone years without raises and have not yet seen any promises (like stock options) materialize, while others seem much better taken care of, which hasn’t gone unnoticed. But discussions about such disparities were also heavily discouraged. By the time I left, employee morale was pretty low, and I didn’t see much being done to turn that around.