The Kool-Aid has run dry - Anonymous employee Updater Employee Review

2.0
8 May 2020
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The people I met at Updater will be friends for life, and we're all united in how poorly managed this company is. Cold brew and beer on tap, unlimited snacks, and annual ski trips are great, but they don't make up for being underpaid, having poor management, and experiencing a lack of career growth. The good news is that since most of the company was recently laid off, there will barely be anyone left to see Updater close its doors when management finally realizes they can't continue. At the very least, I can say that I had a lot of fun when things were good, and I learned a lot about the industry and my field from my extremely talented colleagues.

Cons

Based on my experience with the product, I'd say that it's practically useless because nothing about it is a must-have. It's also my understanding that the product doesn't produce significant revenue. As far as I know, Updater has been in business for something like 7 years and still hasn't seen profitability. To convince everyone that we were still a viable business, the leadership team re-strategized our goals and rolled out some new unreachable target every few months, but insisted on doubling down on the same ineffective business practices to get there. When you give your product away for free and bank on multi-million dollar deals with providers that never come to fruition, what other outcome can you expect?

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Updater Response
6y
Thank you for your dedication to Updater, and for your candid feedback. It’s my responsibility to ensure every teammate has a positive experience, so I’m disappointed to hear that was not the case for you and that you didn’t come to myself or People Ops to share. I’d like to respond to your concerns: We benchmark compensation for each role based on data from similar stage companies and real-time candidate expectation data during the recruiting process. Additionally, it’s a goal of ours to provide career development opportunities and pathways, unique to the individual – it’s not always perfect, but managers and teammates must work together to uncover the right fit. Regarding our overarching strategy and the current state of our business: our vision is unchanged. Everything we do, work toward, and prioritize is in service of dramatically improving efficiencies across all facets of relocation. As you’ve seen, this is a very dynamic and complex problem to solve and presents a tremendous opportunity. I can only hope you’re proud of the impact you had on our mission while at Updater. The recent layoff associated with the pandemic was unquestionably the most difficult day for all Updateers, myself included. However, we kept the majority of jobs intact, we are focused on foundational “mover first” initiatives, and we rebalanced workloads because you’re right – a leaner team shouldn’t have to do the same amount of work. Please feel free to speak with me directly if you have more feedback about how we can improve the experience for others: you have my email address. David

Explore other reviews about Updater

5.0
18 Mar 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
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Pros

Nice employees and managers, not a toxic work environment. Full remote. Steady commitment to improvement. Helpful coworkers. More peer programming than I've had in in-person jobs.

Cons

Career laddering still undergoing a transition

3.0
4 Jan 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

good pay. Good culture. Good work life balance.

Cons

Layoffs occurred very frequently and no one felt safe.

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