Smart Gladiator Reviews

4.6

87% would recommend to a friend

(96 total reviews)
avatar

Puga Sankara

86% approve of CEO

78% positive business outlook

Smart Gladiator has an employee rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars, based on 96 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Smart Gladiator employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

96 reviews
1.0
10 July 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There are no Pros working here.

Cons

I once read the statement, “You don't leave the company, you leave the manager.” This is entirely true if your manager is Puga Sankara. PLEASE DO NOT WORK HERE!! I strongly advise against working here. The manager lacks basic skills in interacting with employees and treating them as human beings. Working under Puga Sankara has been nothing but a nightmare, not only for me but for every past and current employee. LACK OF BASIC SENSE: A manager should guide employees forward in projects through experience and brainstorming sessions. However, when approached, Puga Sankara often says, “C'mon man, you have done your masters, you should already know this.” Despite this, he doesn't mind forcing his master's qualified employees to run errands like picking up and shipping packages from UPS stores or Amazon lockers, calling it an added responsibility because it's a startup. He has made employees pay for shipping company packages out of pocket including myself, only to delay reimbursements for 3-4 months, even after multiple submissions of expense reports. EMPLOYEES SUFFERING: The company has had employees not being paid salary for 15 days after the due date because the boss was out of country without internet access and later blaming it on the HR who does not even work in the company anymore plus no compensation or even an apology for the mistake was provided to the employee. Almost all employees have had to face the problem of picking packages and walking to UPS store to ship it and delayed reimbursement for the shipments. HIS OWN WILL: Puga Sankara forces employees to sign an employee handbook that contains incorrect information. When employees inquire about something mentioned in the handbook, he responds with, “I am making changes to these, so this won’t be applicable now.” He invents policies on the spot and does not document them anywhere but asks employees where they documented their requests for help from the company or him. He has a tendency to forget everything that is asked from him but will say “you never asked me this. Show me the proof”. And when the proof is shown he starts blaming it on other employees. NOT APPROACHABLE AT ALL: There is no fixed policy on performance reviews and no documentation on how the employee is performing or how to improve in the future. When I approached him about performance evaluation and appraisal after completing one year, he avoided the topic for two months, repeatedly rescheduling the meeting at the last minute due to personal errands like changing tires, extending car license registration, and many more. He acts as if his car is more important than his employees' career and work environment . All employees during my time at SG worked hard to grow the company, improve revenue, and take good care of the customers. However, when we approached Puga Sankara with a customer or employee facing a problem, his response was, “I am the leader of this company, and you will do as I say or else you can leave the company.” HE IS THE PROBLEM, NOT THE COMPANY: Puga Sankara should understand that feedback is a two-way street. While his employees reflect on the feedback provided by the employer, he remains stubborn as a kid and refuses to improve his ways of working, even if it negatively impacts the company. All employees ensure that responses to any request, within or outside the company, are provided within the SLA time frame. However, Puga Sankara never responds on time to his employees but expects them to work at full capacity without the necessary approvals and tools. “C'mon man, do I have to babysit you every time an employee asks for something?” All 1 star reviews in the past are true. Everytime a bad review is posted he asks his current employees to post a good review as a part of performance review. No employee in the past has had any complaints with respect to the work but only the CEO Puga Sankara himself. Puga Sankara needs to understand that this review is a testament of his character and not the company. Everything he does cannot be justified by saying its a Start Up. “If its not for you its not for you.” Working on being humane to others has nothing to do with working at Start up. Humanity is a trait you need to develop towards your employees. P.S: the GLADIATOR himself will respond to this review. LOL.

2.0
23 Sept 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-Only less than 10 member, so you can easily talk with CEO -Tell your difficulties -Employee needs are satisfied

Cons

-Low salary -no training -co-employees not good -more working hours, giving homeworks

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Smart Gladiator Response
8y
Thanks for taking the time to share feedback. We exactly know this candidate, as this was the only situation where we had such a tough time engaging this employee with the Smart Gladiator team. We did make a mistake, we did not do a good job in ensuring a thorough fit between the candidate and the culture at Smart Gladiator. Not only we have learnt from this experience, but also we have incorporated procedures in our hiring process to ensure this does not happen again. We have established the following steps in our hiring process moving forward, 1) - Explain in detail about the company, the typical challenges that are encountered by an offshore BU that is supporting customers in US, which are usually flexibility in timing, flexibility in addressing production issues, which need to be resolved quickly and also the cultural and geographical challenges 2) - Also quiz candidates after explaining to ensure that the candidate has really understood what we have explained, we are realizing this especially with candidates such as this example, that we need to be a lot more pro-active and put in lot more effort to make sure they understand what they are signing up for, which is what we do by quizzing and having a thorough dialogue Even though we did not do this with our past hires, this was never an issue because we sustain a culture that is pretty open and encourage our employees to be very forthcoming if they have any questions. We take the candidate out for a nice dinner within a week so the team can learn about the candidate, to ensure the candidate is nicely engaged with the Smart Gladiator team and well situated by creating an open and friendly ambience not only from a work perspective but also at a personal level with the rest of the team members, so that candidate/new employee feels free to bring up any issues he/she might come across, so we can not only help out, but also work together as a team in an open and friendly fashion. With this specific candidate a clear offer letter was given stating the salary and the agreed upon salary was paid timely, which was mutually agreed upon, so the comment Low Salary; is not fair. What he agreed to is what he received. The training that is offered is on the job training, the candidate is expected to work closely with the Technical Lead and Seniors, take help, understand the task at hand thoroughly and finish the task that was assigned to him. Obviously we are a busy company and we have a lot going on, so the candidate needs to be flexible and work with the team, that is part of being a team player. Even after doing everything to get this candidate engaged with the team, this candidate did not even make an effort to get the task done that was assigned, after a few days sends out a resignation letter directly to the CEO/Principal myself. We expect candidates to put in a reasonable effort to get the task done that was assigned, we do understand that they will struggle a little bit being a fresher, but if they sleep on their desk without doing their work, no employer will find that behavior acceptable. This candidate not only wants to sleep for 30 minutes in his 8 hour work schedule, but also would not put in extra time to learn the technology to complete his task, in spite of being a fresher. Ideally this review needs to be removed for the reasons below 1) - This is a not a fair reflection of work environment at Smart Gladiator 2) - Also please look at the reviews from other employees 3) - I have emails that I will forward, where this candidate has said he needs to sleep for 30 minutes if he works for 8 to 9 hours We are perfectly in agreement with Glassdoor philosophy that both employee and employer needs to have a voice, but it is also not fair for unscrupulous employees like this one that take advantage of this philosophy and spread wrong information about our company. It is fair to expect such a system to allow deleting such unfair reviews from such unscrupulous employees. I will forward the email I have to Glassdoor. Also as a candidate if you are looking to learn more about Smart Gladiator, we are as appalled as you are by this review, give us a fair chance, we will show you how great our team is to work with, please email me at puga@smartgladiator.com, I can also share this candidate's email, where he says he wants to sleep for 30 minutes. Many thanks for understanding where we are coming from.
1.0
5 Dec 2019

Do not work here

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I cannot think of a single thing that is positive about this company.

Cons

I can write a 10 page essay on why you should join this horrible company but here are some cons: Do not get paid on Time CEO will try to make you work when you are sick. Treats employees like scum CEO only cares about bottom line and not about employees. (was told this first month i worked here and agree) Very dishonest

avatar
Smart Gladiator Response
6y
Thanks for taking the time to share feedback. We exactly know this candidate, as this was the only situation where we had such a tough time engaging this employee with the Smart Gladiator team. We did make a mistake, we did not do a good job in ensuring a thorough fit between the candidate and the culture at Smart Gladiator. Especially making sure that the employee understands what it takes to work in a Startup. A startup is not for everyone, if you want to work hard, execute and get the rewards, yes the startup is for you, if you cannot do that, you should simply get out. If you want to come in at 9:30 AM and leave at 4:30 PM and then take 2 hour lunch breaks, coffee breaks, etc the startup is not for you. We work hard, we play hard, if you cannot do that, if you do not want to do that, please do not join us, we understand startup is not for everyone. Not only we have learnt from this experience, but also we have incorporated procedures in our hiring process to ensure this does not happen again. We have established the following steps in our hiring process moving forward, 1) - Explain in detail about the company, typical challenges that are encountered by a startup, especially in a Sales Role, startup is not like a regular company, the opportunities are a lot, if you execute it is going to be very rewarding, if you cannot, you should simply get out. 2) - Also quiz candidates after explaining to ensure that the candidate has really understood what we have explained, we are realizing this especially with candidates such as this example, that we need to be a lot more pro-active and put in lot more effort to make sure they understand what they are signing up for, which is what we do by quizzing and having a thorough dialogue. Even though we did not do this with our past hires, this was never an issue because we sustain a culture that is pretty open & encourage our employees to be very forthcoming if they have questions. We take the candidate out for lunch within a week so the team learns about the candidate, to ensure the candidate is nicely engaged with Smart Gladiator team and well situated by creating an open and friendly ambience not only from a work perspective but also at a personal level with the rest of the team members, so that candidate/new employee feels free to bring up any issues he/she might come across, so we can not only help out, but also work together as a team in an open & friendly fashion. With this specific candidate a clear offer letter was given stating the salary and the mutually agreed upon salary was paid timely, so the comment that salary was not paid on time is not fair. I have receipts from the payroll vendor showing that salary was paid on time. As an employer we will get in trouble with state & federal governments if we don’t do this. We have been in business for 5+ years and not only we have done that very well, but also acquired a lot of customers and kept them happy (https://loadproof.clickfunnels.com/features) for which they have given us nice testimonials, so they are with us for a long time. All this we cannot do if we do not run our business in an ethical manner taking care of our employees & customers. This candidate, even though he signed up to give 2 weeks notice, he took salary on the last day of the month, then slyly came in early morning the next day, then left a piece of paper with resignation written on a pencil and walked out, which is not only very unprofessional, but also un-ethical. If there is an issue, the first thing you should do is talk to your manager. You are a grown up, and if you cannot even have such a conversation I am at loss for words. Also, I took this employee out on a nice lunch for his birthday along with the entire team and this employee said that I am the first boss that took him out for lunch on his birthday, come on man, you cannot say one thing to me and say something else in a review like this. Ideally this review needs to be removed for reasons below 1) - This is a not a fair reflection of work environment at Smart Gladiator 2) - Also please look at reviews from other employees 3) - I have emails that I will forward, with the resignation letter submitted by this employee, that was written on a piece of paper with pencil. We are perfectly in agreement with Glassdoor philosophy that both employee and employer needs to have a voice, but it is also not fair for unscrupulous employees like this that take advantage of this philosophy and spread wrong information about our company. It is fair to expect such a system to allow deleting such unfair reviews from such unscrupulous employees. I will forward the email I have to Glassdoor. Also as a candidate if you are looking to learn more about Smart Gladiator, we are as appalled as you are by this review, give us a fair chance, we will show you how great our team is to work with, please email me at puga@smartgladiator.com, I can also share this candidate's resignation letter, that he wrote in a piece of paper with pencil. Many thanks for understanding where we are coming from.
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Glassdoor has 98 Smart Gladiator reviews submitted anonymously by Smart Gladiator employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Smart Gladiator is right for you.