Pros
There are some really talented people who work at RapidDeploy
Cons
- RapidDeploy is not an Austin startup/tech company - It’s a Public Safety software company based in Austin. This is a very important difference to note for those applying. RapidDeploy has been trying to figure out this cultural identity crisis since it came to the states, and unfortunately, if you are expecting to join an innovative, fast-paced, growth-stage, Austin tech startup, this is not the place for you. - There is an extreme bias towards public safety industry veterans, so if you don’t have public safety experience, think twice before applying. Extremely qualified and more diverse candidates have been turned down for jobs. Instead those jobs were offered to folks who weren’t as qualified, but had public safety experience. This has caused the company to become overwhelmingly older, male, and white, in a majority of departments, particularly sales. Additionally, the favoritism towards those with public safety experience is grossly apparent, especially in terms of those who get promoted and those who are spoken highly of in public. This has caused the company to be a refuge for public safety veterans whose salaries have outpaced what public safety can offer, but now they have nowhere else to go. They bring with them plenty of experience and industry expertise, but also an immense amount of bias. Public safety and those who come from the industry are extremely conservative, old fashioned, and traditional, in all senses. “This is the way things work” is a common phrase you will hear here. RapidDeploy says they want to transform public safety, but these people struggle enough with embracing change themselves that it is doubtful they will be leading a transformation of an entire industry. Many people who come from the industry have “new” ideas of how to build our products, when in reality they would like to see tired features that they’ve seen or used on older products, so, in reality… - RapidDeploy does not have a great competitive advantage or differentiation in the market. It is essentially (slowly) rebuilding products that legacy providers and competitors continue to sell, such as CAD systems and other public safety software, with the main differentiator of being in the cloud. RapidDeploy’s software looks a lot better, but in its current state, it doesn’t function much better, if at all. In many cases it doesn’t work, at least for the market they are trying to go after. This is because… - RapidDeploy is unable to deliver their flagship product. The company has been focused for so long on delivering huge features, which are necessary/required to be able to sell the product to clients. Meanwhile our infrastructure is crumbling. Bugs and other technical debt are a constant issue, and the systemic infrastructure issues have made it incredibly painful and slow for all of the engineering teams. There is next-to-no focus from the executive team and other leadership. They have tried doubling their product portfolio before being able to deliver a CAD system to general availability. However, they can’t focus on this issue or fix the problems because… - RapidDeploy is dying under extreme contractual obligations. Essentially, this is a classic case of overpromising and under delivering. RapidDeploy sold the idea of its product before the product was finished being built or ready for scalable market launch. This was a combination of overpromising from the sales team and the original product leadership, signing contracts they could not deliver on, and not providing engineering the opportunity to accurately estimate the effort to actually deliver on these promises. This has put RapidDeploy in a hole of which they have been unable to get out for YEARS now. Deadlines have been pushed back and contracts have been renegotiated too many times to count, and morale is low across the entire company because everyone has been cracking under the weight of 1-2 large clients for what feels like forever. This only exacerbates the pressure and burnout because once those clients go live, there will be so much infrastructure to fix, and post-go-live work to make sure everything is stable, but sales is continuing to sell to new clients, and there are future deadlines and contractual agreements set for soon after go-live. It’s never ending, and no one ever gets a break, especially engineers who constantly put in overtime. The language from our CEO is that “we’re almost there guys, just keep pushing forward” but eventually the engine runs out of steam. Burnout is completely ignored and people don’t feel as though they can use their PTO because the deadlines are ever-present. - The sales strategy changes once every 4-6 months, about twice during the tenure of the last 3 sales executives. In actuality, there is NO data-backed sales strategy at all and our CRM is a mess, so if you aren’t in sales, you can’t easily understand who the company is engaging with and why. The “strategy” seems to have always been “throw stuff at the wall to see what sticks” and the results speak for themselves. RapidDeploy has trouble delivering the product and yet they keep expanding the sales team? Got it. - There is extreme cronyism at RapidDeploy. Every few months, they hire someone new from the public safety industry for some shady, made-up position that was never posted publicly. It seems that the CEO has made some friends during the past few years while trying to shake hands, meet people, and make deals for the company. And now, those people are cashing in and having the favor returned by receiving cushy, ambiguously titled jobs, and access to the CEO’s ear. It’s quite obvious, other employees see what is going on, and news flash, it doesn’t make us feel good. People feel like their opinions and expertise don’t matter because they aren’t buddy-buddy with the CEO, the public safety cronies, and the sales team. People get promoted into manager and leadership positions not because of their strengths in their areas, but because of their ability to brown nose or speak over others in meetings. In fact, several people in positions of power today had done horribly in their previous roles at RapidDeploy, for example, the product leadership that landed the company in the contract with the large client they still have been unable to deliver. Instead of being reprimanded and fired, however, these individuals were promoted and moved to lead other teams or create teams of their own. Which leads to… - RapidDeploy is a boys club full of misogyny, sexual harassment, verbal abuse, bullying, and casual racism, mostly in a few departments like sales, but it is tolerated in others. People cry often - especially women, especially those who work with the CEO. What he says during the company all hands is NOT how he thinks or feels, or what he says behind closed doors. There have even been instances of sexual harassment that have been swept under the rug. It is unfortunate that the CEO and RapidDeploy value the contributions of harassers and bullies more than the experience had by multiple women, who have gone through psychological, emotional, and mental harm, some of whom experienced this multiple times. RapidDeploy supposedly has a zero tolerance policy, but it is quite obvious they don’t take it seriously. - There has been a LOT of turnover in the past several months, particularly women and people of color. Also, this is especially true for those who come from outside of public safety. This is probably because it’s a madhouse, and if you have experience outside of public safety, you will realize companies shouldn’t function this way (and this one certainly isn’t functioning). Several top performers came in, made a huge impact/improvement in a few months, and have suddenly left with no explanation. Between the inappropriate comments, the harassment, belittling, and just blatant disrespect, it’s quite obvious why lots of women and people of color have been leaving too. RapidDeploy’s entire US HR department had 100% turnover last month. RapidDeploy’s entire marketing department has also been a revolving door. The Chief Product Officer, the only woman and person of color in the c-suite, just left very suddenly after only working at RapidDeploy for a year and a half. The Chief Operating Officer, the first US employee, left months ago, and they have had no intention of backfilling him, at least with an external candidate. However, the optics are quite obvious that his position will be filled by one of the CEO’s cronies, who is vastly underqualified for the role. There have been 4 C-Suite departures in total in less than 6 months. All of these departures mentioned, except 1, have been from non-public safety employees. - There is a general huge divide between the US and South Africa. There is no general animosity between our two groups, but the company has not handled the operational difficulties of working across different cultures and time zones. The company started in South Africa, as the founder and current Chief Innovation Officer built it there. They decided to expand to the US because it was a much better and easier market to break into. However, half the company, and a majority of the engineers for RapidDeploy’s flagship product still sit in SA. They are amazing people and have been working tirelessly to launch the product. However, leadership has done such a poor job of ensuring smooth operations between the SA product/engineering half, and the US business half. They try to treat everyone as one group, and that unfortunately has not worked. Additionally, they have been extremely hesitant with hiring additional engineers in the US for the flagship product. Maybe it is because they don’t want to show favoritism? The problem is, it has been very difficult to staff up properly, and as they only hire in Cape Town, the talent pool is incredibly small. This has only added additional pressure to meet goals and deadlines, even though they are vastly understaffed when it comes to engineering and meeting the goals currently set by contractual obligations. Additionally, there is very little room for professional growth on the South African side, particularly on the product team. - Many of the “leaders” at RapidDeploy are either unqualified, have never done their current jobs before, or do not have the necessary skills to take the company to the next level, especially IPO. - RapidDeploy grew its staff too quickly, and with next to no strategy, so now there is lots of fat to trim, meanwhile they still cannot deliver the product. - There is next-to-no diversity, especially at the C-Suite, VP, and director levels. - There is an extreme lack of transparency across the entire organization - The general vibe is Blue Lives Matter