FreeWill Reviews

It takes time to transition from a scrappy startup. The original engineering team was entirely junior, and they are just coming to the end of dealing with cleanup of past mistakes. The best decision made to date was to replace the head of engineering and hire more senior engineers which has made the engineering team much more professional. This has yet to happen on the design team, which has the same issue. The head of design does not have the requisite experience and doesn't want to hear from anyone who does. The design team is timid and afraid to do anything innovative. This will be the company's Achille's heel until senior management realizes the business value of a functioning design team, especially as we try to stand out from the competition and need innovative ideas to find our market niche. FreeWill is a risky venture in a very competitive space. I feel that either we could find a strong niche or be easily copied by a competitor. Right now we're throwing things at the wall to see what sticks.

Performance Improvement Plans aren't just part of the culture. They ARE the culture. In fact, the phrase “PIP culture” is thrown around in daily conversation. The VP of Sales even acknowledged to the entire department that people are working out of fear to stay off PIPs rather than feeling supported to become better sales people. They pride themselves on having an *80% success rate of people passing their PIPs. Companies should be proud of hiring the right people and training them effectively so they don’t ever go on PIPs, not about how many people "pass" them. I would say I’m surprised more people aren’t on here speaking up about it, but truthfully most people are afraid of being targeted for negative feedback. We recently went through a DEI training and it’s clear from the content that people in all departments have a lack of trust in leadership. Managers are not held to the same standard as individual contributors. They are only out to save their own skin, and when put under pressure are quick to throw their own people under the bus. I’ve recently seen several colleagues run out of here that were good, hardworking people, but unqualified managers are still around. During the interview they talk about this incredible company culture that existed 2-3 years ago, but it’s a complete bait and switch. That is not the culture today and they need to be honest about it with themselves and future hires. I don’t know what the day-to-day looks like for departments outside of sales, but from all the pulse surveys and DEI training it’s evident people do not feel safe or supported throughout the company. It’s really disappointing that a company so focused on doing good for other organizations can be fostering such a destructive environment for their own team. It is worth mentioning, I don’t like generalizing because I don’t want to lump the good people with the bad. I can think of one good leader who is no longer over AEs. However, if I were to be more specific about management I risk singling myself out and becoming a potential target.