Toxic culture, gaslighting, but with snacks - AI Annotator Cohere Employee Review

1.0
Oct 31, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The dog is the friendliest person in the office.

Cons

At first, this job seemed great. Our manager was supportive, and we genuinely felt valued. Unfortunately, about a year in, something changed — possibly due to funding issues — and the whole atmosphere shifted. We started being timed on our work, with every minute tracked and any discrepancies questioned. We had to invoice using different codes for countless tiny projects, which meant more time spent tracking tasks than actually doing meaningful work. We were even told we couldn’t charge for toilet breaks. The creative and interesting work we were hired to do gradually turned into repetitive, monotonous tasks that were impossible to focus on. There was no proper training, and new projects were thrown at us without explanation or guidance. We were assured there would be plenty of work, but by mid-2025, it started drying up. Only then did we discover that we were actually on zero-hours contracts — something that had been disguised in all earlier communications. Management handled the situation poorly, dragging things out for months instead of being honest with us. It all ended with an awkward video call from someone none of us had ever met, telling us our “human evaluation” work was no longer needed. No thanks, no acknowledgment, no empathy — just a cold dismissal. I worked there for two and a half years. I’ve never been treated so poorly in my entire career. If you value your mental health or professional integrity, stay far away from this company. No one seems to know what they’re doing, and they certainly don’t value their staff.

Explore other reviews about Cohere

5.0
Dec 15, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- focus on multilingual and open science research - good team collaboration

Cons

- management team should be improved

1
2.0
Oct 21, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good pay and benefits, friendly coworkers (depending on which team you're on). Company is healthy with high ARR and customer base is largely enterprise level businesses.

Cons

Major power grab happened recently with the old head of marketing leaving. Lack of clarity around company mission, vision, purpose, values and culture. Sole focus is on revenue growth at all cost with blatant disregard for employee wellbeing, WLB and healthy team dynamics is important but often ignored. Teams work in silos and communication is difficult with unclear POCs. Hopefully this stabilizes and things improve as new leadership finds proper footing. High rate of turnover recently since leadership transition.

4
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