Writing is on the wall - Anonymous employee Ingenu Employee Review

2.0
Sep 11, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Lots of good engineers and genuinely good people. Relaxed work atmosphere (9 to 5) when you have a job. Beer Thursdays once a month are back. Party planning committee does a good job of trying to boost the morale. Decent vacation policy (15 days) gets better after 5 years (20 days).

Cons

TECHNOLOGY: It is not as great as people at Ingenu believe. There is a reason that there are only handful of deployments, with largest deployment of a paltry 40000 endpoints, after 8 years of countless trials and pilots. Most of these deployments were priced ridiculously to win. The technology has fundamental limitations and this is the core problem. BOARD & CO-FOUNDERS: The figurehead board does not do its job. Main investor and co-founders are fickle minded and desperate.They run door-to-door chasing the next thing without a well-thought out strategy and discipline. They grossly underestimate expenditure and overestimate future revenue. This is why the company keeps digging itself into a financial hole. EXECUTIVE TEAM: Thanks to this "next girlfriend" approach, the executive team minus the founders (i.e. CEO, marketing, sales, finance, product) is a revolving door every 2 years. This creates confusion and uncertainty in rank and file. Oddly, there is a deeply embedded culture of engineering first and not customers and market share first, which is inherent reason for the inability of the company to pivot and be successful. FINANCING: There has been no major investor other than third wave because the company is unable to generate revenues, for the above 3 key reasons, even after 9 years of existence. The last interim co-CEOs were supposed to invest but left in 1 week!! Current interim CEO is the third wave investor partner. FUTURE: Now that the new CEO, who is VC and not a business strategist, has direct visibility into the true problem at hands, I bet he will try to put lipstick on the pig and sell it for the best deal he can get. There is always a deal for the right price, and when it happens, the co-founders and early employees will do fine to OK while the rest of us will have nothing to show for our work. FUTURE EMPLOYEE: Pay is below industry average. No pay hikes or bonuses (no money). No 401K matching. 20% of health from your pocket + high deductibles. Surprisingly no stock options for performance! High turnover among non-founding employees.

Explore other reviews about Ingenu

5.0
Aug 31, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Been here for a while where I can say I've seen it all. Having said that, reality lies somewhere in the middle of the extreme reviews. The bottom line is it would be hard to find a company as good as Ingenu if you break it down as a place to work: great talent, great pay, great culture, great benefits and cutting edge technology in RPMA. Do not underestimate the potential of RPMA! Yes there are politics, big egos, internal drama, layoffs and such. But what company doesn't have these? My overall rating is actually 4.5 stars.

Cons

The biggest con is constant change in company direction; chasing the "next big thing" and not seeing things through. With each new sales/leadership overhaul, a new vision is brought in that is the savior of all things, but only results in lukewarm success or borderline failure. Additionally too many external forces and special interests affecting daily operations; can't let that happen.

4
4.0
Aug 30, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- The application of Ingenu's RPMA networking technology to the emerging IoT market represents a huge opportunity. Still likely to be on the ground floor of something big. - Talented, motivated engineering team. Some of the best systems, software, firmware and hardware talents in the industry. - Culture of innovation. Always trying to improve the technology. - Merit based advancement and minimal management overhead. - Flexible work environment and reasonable project timelines that don't rely on working crazy hours. - Family friendly workplace. Stepping out of the office to attend kid's school events or coach a sport is never a problem. Not uncommon to see employees bring their kids into the office. - Social, team oriented work environment.

Cons

- Market traction continues to lag. IoT market represents a huge opportunity but the timetable is difficult to predict. Always seems like just a couple quarters more and things will take off. - Lots of executive turnover. Last two CEO's removed by board for lack of business traction. Probably a positive to hold the "Boss" responsible for the state of affairs but creates a lot of fits and starts including a recent RIFT that hit business/sales team hard. Considering the lack of business development and forecasting probably needed but never a comfortable situation. - No visibility into business and sales development or lack there of. - Recent cash flow issues. Ousted CEO claimed solid funding at all-hands and then cash flow problems started almost immediately afterwards.

5
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