A great place to work until it went downhill - Anonymous employee Helix Employee Review

2.0
Sep 17, 2019
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Great mission - Strong hires - Science team is strong

Cons

- Plagued with incompetent upper management that are afraid to get their hands dirty - Process placed in places where it's not necessary - Downhill in culture (San Diego office is a different story. San Carlos office has really suffered) - Startup ran like a big corporation - Unclear about priorities and OKRS

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Helix Response
6y
I'd like to start off by saying that myself or the Helix Leadership Team are open to hearing your feedback and we'd like to help you feel happier and/or clarify your concerns. Come talk to us! With our new focus and our 4-year experiences, we know what's important and we know what we need to do to achieve our goals. We've shared annual and quarterly OKRs at the all-hands meetings and in the next all-hands, we'll be going over where we landed on Q3 OKRs. If you are not clear on your priorities, please have a conversation with your manager. Helix has a culture of learning, transparency, feedback, and collaboration because of the type of work we do. There's always room to improve and as a start-up, we have the opportunity to make changes and create. We hope that you are able to get clarity on your concerns and continue on this journey with us, that from the exciting news shared yesterday at the all-hands, we have a lot of work to do! -Romina

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Pros

Dynamic fast modern company with lots of opportunities to learn modern tools.

Cons

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1.0
Nov 2, 2024
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The industry the company is in has potential.

Cons

After a decade, many basic processes are still not standardized. Simple tasks that should be easy elsewhere take unnecessary effort here. Mid-level managers form cliques, handling conflicts by forcing the more reasonable side to back down. Double standards are everywhere. People who don’t do the work tend to oppress those who do. Managers have a shallow understanding of both the work and people, resorting to bullying those who are kind while avoiding confrontations with the strong or rude. There's a constant manpower shortage, and higher-level issues are often dumped on lower-level employees, but salaries and promotions don’t reflect this. Meetings are mostly for show—employees are only allowed to ask trivial questions or praise each other. If you bring up real issues, they’ll either ask you to fix them yourself or tell you to stay quiet. Layoffs have been frequent over the past year, mostly targeting decent employees who won’t cause trouble or those who dare to speak up. The company is rigidly hierarchical, both in title and race. Middle managers give speeches as if they’re important figures, which is laughable. The quality of employees has dropped, and management is full of holes. Issues in old negative Glassdoor reviews remain unresolved to this day. The tolerance for toxic employees and the chaotic management have left good employees discouraged—they either find excuses to leave or simply cut down their productivity. As one one-star review said, this company needs a complete overhaul, not just minor tweaks.

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