Lack of Diversity, Wealth of nepotism! - Product Design Bamboo Employee Review

1.0
Oct 13, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Bamboo praises itself for its progressive benefits. They go big on social outings...

Cons

Bamboo literally has no diversity. They represent the standard in silicon valley/global tech industry's history of demographics. Today, many companies think they can check their diversity box by hiring women, and non-blacks, while not truly addressing the deeper cultural and institutional issues they have. Bamboo manages to model this standard with its white male-centered-bro-y culture. I didn't not realize my how much my experience at Bamboo had taken a toll on my life/stress, work-life-balance, and health until I left. When I joined Bamboo there was one Black man at the company. When I left there was still only one... My team unfortunately was very unstable due to nepotism and the micro-aggressions that management got away with expressing toward their team members. This created an isolating environment for the mostly women and women of color that my boss acted out against. What made it even more uncomfortable during my time at Bamboo was their performative acts towards transparency and how they quickly developed ambiguous performance evaluation processes to stifle employees from advancing and creating false expectations that they themselves did not live up to. The company chooses the old school approach of vetting incoming candidates for "cultural fit" via macho whiskey meetings—making it easier to bring friends in. What resulted is the cliquey environment I found myself in—where like minds thrived, and diverse challenges to the "tech world standard" were seen as illegitimate or frowned upon. Bamboo's HR and management teams lack the experience and training in diversity, inclusion and empathy to address deeply entrenched issues within the company. It's sad that many end up being singled out and unheard because of bias. I'd say run the other direction if you are looking for true growth and a company that values their people as much as their profit.

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Bamboo Response
5y
Thank you for sharing your thoughts about your time at Bamboo, and I am sincerely sorry that you didn’t have a great experience. We recognize that it’s important to be more intentional in our efforts to not only hire, but retain and support a diverse team. We're actively working to build and sustain a workplace where everyone feels welcomed and supported. We’ve also worked hard to create development plans that are fair, equitable and transparent; we want to empower our team to know where they can grow in order to achieve the next step in their career! The opportunity to develop and grow is a cornerstone of Bamboo’s culture. It is simply untrue that informal meetings are part of our hiring process. Every candidate goes through the same objective hiring process. We don't make any exceptions. We really appreciate you taking the time to leave your feedback. We’re constantly learning and growing, and evolving to be a better company for our team!

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