I wait a couple months to leave reviews to make sure I've got a clear head. These cons come from a place of sincere compassion for my former coworkers.
Tl;dr: The most skilled people I've worked with have been made to feel worthless at LumenAd. I'll try to break down why this is, but overall, very skilled people who've since gone on to work/interview at industry-leading tech companies feel like LumenAd sucked years out of their career development, myself included.
Here's why I think this is:
1. There is no company vision. To lead a successful tech company the CEO needs to answer three questions concisely and in a compelling way: "what are we making? who is it for? why do they need it?" The answers to these questions not only change quarter to quarter, they change depending on which VP you ask/work under. The result is unrealistic company-wide goals that get changed halfway through a quarter.
2. Reactive, short-term decision-making. This stems from the first point, there is no overarching vision for where the company is headed, so all decisions are made reactively instead of proactively. This is a problem in an industry that faces siesmic shifts monthly.
3. A "yes-people" culture. LumenAd has a bad habit of hiring amazing skilled employees and then not listening to them. I'm talking real experts who get ignored in favor of someone who, while very good at their own area of expertise, doesn't have the same expertise as the expert they hired. This leads to a situation where, in order to get anything done, you need to not ask for approval. Ask for forgiveness, not permission if you want to accomplish things.
4. A performance-based mindset. "If it's not tied to a metric, it's not worth doing" is oftentimes (not always) the mindset of leadership. This is likely due to the fact that this is a performance marketing company. But that mindset does not build a sound foundation for a brand that ostensibly is meant to change the industry. There is no long term plan or appreciation for work that takes months to see a return. ROI for a task is expected to be immediate, and if it's not, it's at risk for being on the chopping block.
I'm only scratching the surface here. The result of all these issues is that no one can act autonomously unless they literally ignore what leadership is saying. Because leadership's minds change too frequently, they lack the capacity to listen to people who are experts in their field, and anything that goes against their limited understanding of how marketing works is seen as problematic and counter to their non-existent vision.