It’s a good place to work - Software Engineer Goodshop Employee Review

Peter, the new CEO, is helpful, informative, and great at communication. He really makes you feel heard and is always open to new ideas. He believes in the power of collaboration, always asking for ways to innovate and improve upon the current model and makes real change based on suggestions of his employees. He really cares about the future of Goodshop and what that looks like moving forward and wants to see everyone in the company succeed. I loved my position so much, I recommended it to a friend.

As in any job, some of the work can be monotonous, but you always know what is expected of you and there is room for growth in the company.

Great Things about Goodshop 1) Goodshop donates every-time a member makes a purchase on a qualified deal on Goodshop. Giving is baked into the company DNA. You have to make money to give money, so there is an interest in making money to grow the company. 2) Smart people, nice people, people who can be themselves at work. 3) Profitable. Goodshop is tossed back and forth on the winds of SEO and Google search, but it’s a solid business with plenty of growth opportunity. The SEO techniques are not “black hat” - it’s all normal industry best practices. There are a few projects underway to diversify the dependency on SEO.

Goodshop Challenges 1) Culture issues. It’s a top down firefighting culture. Zero transparency. They hire smart peeps, tell them nothing about what is going on and treat them like they got off the short bus. 2) The SEO is a sharp guy, but he is a bit distracted. He seems to be primarily focused on “managing up” to the investors and is not great at communicating to the rank and file. He has hired a couple of his friends who are not overly productive. 3) Engineering leadership is low on both leadership and engineering. Engineers are average but spoiled like they are coding GODS. 4) It’s very suspicious for an LLC to hand out stock options with no declared intent toward merger or IPO, and with no declaration of income or funds removed/retained. The employees are smart enough to work that out.