Fictiv Reviews

A review I read on here pretty much nails it. There are not very many people of color at Fictiv (a handful) and any that are leave very quickly (POC that have been at Fictiv for a while have slowly been trickling out.) One of the most damaging situations in my opinion was rumors of a male higher up in the organization that had multiple allegations of sexual harassment leveled against him. I will say that although I didn’t work with him closely, I walked out of every interaction with him feeling distinctly uncomfortable (he would dole out every micro-aggression against women in the book). I made a note to avoid him when I could. These rumors went on for almost a year...the fact that he was kept on for as long as he was says something about Fictiv’s priorities. It’s the bottom line over the health, well being, and respect of their female employees. I do think Dave has a strange way of trying to bring up events that relate to POC. The Colin Kaepernick one was one of them. He related the “believe in something even if it means sacrificing everything” messaging to the company’s mission...which was mind blowing in its lack of awareness. I did notice that once we had an event at Fictiv (with other people outside of the office) the poster was taken down, which also says something about Fictiv’s priorities. I also agree about the Jean comments - I have witnessed her shredding people to pieces (I thought we were just so past that mentality in 2021? Haven’t we learned that these tactics don’t work?) Another thing to point out would be the nepotism. The 3 founders and people who have been at the company for the longest amount of time are siblings. And it shows. They all lead their respective parts of the org and sometimes it’s extremely difficult to work with them because it’s clear that regardless of how they act and the results they deliver, they are untouchable. My point is, there are better places to work. Places where you will be valued and where you will learn and have ample opportunities to grow. Places where you won’t feel like an other or because you aren’t valued because you are a woman or a person or color. And places where you can comfortably go to HR to find a solution and know you won’t be gaslighted. Do yourself a favor and put yourself first, don’t work at Fictiv. I can guarantee you that many former employees feel the same way and are aligned on what the core issues are at Fictiv.

Where do I even begin. A lot of other recent reviews have eloquently described a lot of the mess we’ve had to endure working at Fictiv. How the company continues to justify the Colin Kaepernick poster and keeping a reported sexual harasser as a higher up, I will never understand. We say we’re a startup so we can get away with having no diversity practices and questionable interview processes and we make no effort to improve. As other reviewers have mentioned, one of the worst offenders is the COO. She puts down women every chance she gets and will sabotage your career if she feels threatened by you in any way. The C suite in general refuses to take constructive criticism and will defend their bad choices by reminding us that we’re a startup and it’s normal to have growing pains. There is no forum within the company to provide anonymous feedback and that’s likely why Glassdoor has become an outlet for many of us. Like I mentioned previously, working at Fictiv will teach you a lot. But you’ll also be intensely overworked and underpaid. I’ve heard multiple instances of women getting paid significantly less than their male counterparts and then being punished when they bring this up with VPs. Regardless of how unfair this all seems, every chance he gets, Dave will tell you that you should be grateful. But for what you might ask. For free lunches, a $250 stipend each month, and the opportunity to put all your time and energy into a company that seems to be going backwards in its DE&I practices. Not to mention the HR team at Fictiv is just there for show. They will gaslight you at every turn and make you feel like incidents you report are somehow caused by you. One of the selling points of Fictiv for employees continues to be guided expertise and getting to work with intelligent people. This is not the case. The sales team works incredibly hard to understand manufacturing but the fact is it’s tough to talk to engineers about engineering when you yourself don’t understand. And that is by no means the fault of the sales people. Fictiv takes zero initiative in training their people. And this means that people on the manufacturing team and the software team with multiple degrees in advanced sciences are spending their day explaining the most basic things over and over again. I want to emphasize here that the sales people are always open to learning and pick up complex concepts remarkably quickly. But Fictiv invests time and money into writing marketing content that nobody reads and throwing more bodies, rather than resources, at the problem. First and foremost remember that Fictiv is a manufacturing company. This industry is not welcoming to women and people of color and Fictiv doesn’t make an effort to change or improve that. The stock photo of a generic African American woman on their website and their specific highlighting of “diverse people”, many of whom don’t even work at the company anymore, proves that. They will continue to say they’re working on it but there won’t be any concrete changes. Older employees (people who have been there a while) are condescending and rude and will second guess your every word. If you are early in your career and looking for some solid development and experience in the industry, do yourself a favor and look for a different job. They’ll probably pay you better too.