ClearRoute Reviews

One of the biggest challenges is the lack of consistency in the company’s long-term vision. The direction of the organization seems to shift frequently, almost every year, which creates uncertainty for employees and makes it difficult to align with long-term goals or build stability in career growth. Recently, there has been a very strong shift toward AI-focused initiatives, which, while relevant to the market, can sometimes feel overly narrow and may overshadow other valuable engineering practices and business priorities. Another challenge is the disconnect between leadership and employees, especially for teams based in India. Contributions, ideas, and suggestions from Indian employees do not always seem to receive the same level of attention or consideration as those from UK teams. This can be discouraging for employees who are actively trying to improve processes or introduce innovation. Additionally, the work culture within the India team can at times feel overly hierarchical or authoritarian, where decisions are mostly top-down and there is limited room for open discussion or challenging leadership perspectives. This can impact morale, collaboration, and the sense of ownership among employees.

The founders are friends, and unfortunately the company often feels like a case study in why people say not to mix friends, family and business. There are too many cooks in the kitchen, too many made-up leadership titles created to give people a seat at the table, and too many important decisions made behind closed doors. Transparency gets mentioned a lot, but it often feels more like a buzzword than a reality. Most employees have stopped providing feedback because experience has shown that it largely gets ignored or dismissed. Any action plans that come out of surveys generally feel like checkbox exercises to appease rather than genuine attempts to address the issues being raised. Historically, a lot of work seems to have been won through relationships rather than merit. More recently the company has been pushing AI work hard despite only really entering the space recently. It's difficult to understand how a company can confidently sell AI expertise in such a fast moving market when it's still developing that capability itself. There is a lot of overselling and overpromising just to win work. Several years in, the company is a scale-up that still hasn't grown out of its startup clothes. The focus seems to be on growing the business at all costs rather than putting the foundations in place for a strong, sustainable company. The cracks are starting to show. Hiring is becoming increasingly difficult with more and more open positions sitting unfilled. The global recruitment function has done little to build a strong hiring pipeline or process leaving employees scrambling to help fill roles instead. If you're in sales or operations, you'll probably have a good experience. Engineers should think three times before applying, there are plenty of better options out there. Morale has been on a downward trend for the last couple of years and right now it's hard to see that changing anytime soon.