Pros
I enjoyed working with my direct manager. He was very personable and down to earth. The salary was great and commensurate with my experience/role responsibilities. I was able to be fully remote.
Cons
There was a restructure in mid-June, and, unfortunately, me and a quarter of the product team were let go. It was a shock to get a meeting request from my manager right before the start of the workday to chat at 9am. It was probably more jarring for me because that was my second layoff from a startup within nine months. Per usual, access was cut off immediately after the conversation. It was cold and disheartening. I've had almost two months to reflect on my experience. I really wanted FactoryFix to work out long-term. But I've realized that it was never going to be the case. I was sold a tale of them being eager to invest in marketing and wanting to hire experts to help the company grow. Spoiler alert: that was far from the reality of things. After the new marketing director left in January – because very early on, it became apparent that she wouldn't be given the resources or entrusted to execute her strategy – her role was never backfilled. Despite the lack of marketing leadership and support, I carried out my strategies as best I could – receiving nothing but positive feedback along the way. If the CEO wanted to pivot in a new direction, I pivoted. And boy, were there many pivots. I soon realized that the company and the brand had an incurable identity crisis. And here are some of the other issues I experienced while at FactoryFix: - No business goals were articulated or shared with the teams. It was just an expectation of continual revenue growth/more customer acquisition. - Very little insight into what other people and teams were doing and minimal collaboration. Often, people were off doing what they thought was best without telling other team members whose work would be impacted. - Poor communication from the CEO and a clear lack of direction. - No investment in marketing beyond a new SEMrush subscription. I never had a graphic designer to help me. Instead, my boss (SVP level) was designing things in Canva. - I was not involved in projects that I should have been. This relates to my point above of not knowing what others were doing. I'd find out later that something was underway and I wasn't consulted or brought in for review. It made me feel like they really didn't care about what I could bring to the table. - Constant pivots from the CEO. It seemed that they never gave anything enough time. It was always let's try out this new thing that I read/heard about and expected whatever that was to work a miracle. I'd avoid joining FactoryFix unless things drastically change. Especially with some of the leaders that are in place. In the end, I realized I was sold a picture of a reality that could never possibly be realized, given the myriad issues at the company.