Dysfunctional - Anonymous employee Calm Employee Review

I truly love working here. Every day I’m inspired by my team—the people are supportive, collaborative, and genuinely care about doing great work together. I feel challenged in the best ways, with plenty of opportunities to learn and grow. The product itself is something I’m proud of. Knowing that what we build has a positive impact on people’s lives makes the work meaningful and rewarding. It’s rare to find a place where the mission, the culture, and the day-to-day experience all align so well.

Nothing significant—just the natural adjustments that come with growth and change

- working at a brand like Calm really opens a lot of doors - I found the pay and benefits to be competitive - my coworkers, direct manager, and team were superb - had genuine work life balance for most of my tenure - the content and the app are genuinely a thing I was proud to work on - lots of room for development and learning - had tons of control over my schedule - if you get laid off they will probably offer you a contract or consulting role because they need the support so…..infinite employment loop!!!

- there was room for development but never room for comp raises - incredibly sexist boys club energy - not much psychological safety; I lived through two really big layoffs and annual medium layoffs - leadership & strategy: in flux like…a lot! A little directionless? They make lots of big bets and take risks, pivot quickly, take new risks. I think that can be smart but I watched them make the same mistakes repeatedly. Like, that didn’t work the first time! Why are you doing it again! - benefits are good except as soon as you add a dependent onto your health insurance it becomes super expensive - no in person time ever: they did one entire company offsite when I was there which was largely just seminars and very little productivity or team building - the culture is very corporate word salad at times. I felt often like leadership of all levels was trying to avoid just saying the truth or saying something simple and hid behind synonyms. - I’m gonna say it again: SO sexist. And like, the kind of sexist where most of the men are probably progressives and would say that they are feminists, and they probably are! But in practice and in the workplace the women were disregarded, not elevated as leaders, did not get a seat at the table. - AI use: used artificial intelligence to replace human narrators and artists. All of their work right now is largely AI-generated, and they’re eliminating actual human jobs to make poor quality AI content. They don’t even use AI efficiently. Claude Cowork?? No, TikTok AI video slop!!