Almost dead by a thousand cuts - Software Engineer Unbabel Employee Review

1.0
Sep 5, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Free snacks and beer, if that's your thing.

Cons

For a tech company, their engineering department only accounts for 13% of their workforce. Most products are in maintenance mode, most current engineers had no onboarding and have to work on legacy codebases that have seen no significant improvements for years. The team is either composed by people who have no career plans because the good ones left and don't have the courage to leave themselves or by just hired employees who were sold a different company in the interview process. Engineering keeps making the same technological mistakes over and over again, operate on a sunk cost fallacy mentality and cannot innovate. Research teams are a sink hole of money and work on problems that have no real world benefit for the company. The quality of models used in production has not improved in the last 1.5 years. Marketing is too big of a team, refuse to talk about metrics and funnels because they haven't been able to deliver organic growth for years, despite writing hundreds of unread blog posts, organising and sponsoring dozens of conferences and spending rivers of money in ads. Sales don't train new hires and expects them to perform at impossible levels, there's a fear-based culture, employees are stalked and their e-mail accounts are snooped. Customer Support teams are overworked, don't know the product they support and can't escalate problems internally in an effective manner. The executive team is a bunch of amateurs with very conflicting opinions, no vision for the company nor willingness to do what it takes to help fix the company's structural problems. The company is mostly operating in self management mode.

Explore other reviews about Unbabel

5.0
Apr 15, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

One of the best things about working for Unbabel is the accessibility of the project managers. They are always great at answering any questions and clearing up any details to make sure you are able to finish your tasks appropriately. The variety of domains also keeps everything fresh. It can be healthcare, IT, e-commerce, or anything else!

Cons

The work flow is unpredictable. Sometimes I can get assignments regularly every week but then I may go through a dry spell of several months before getting another assignment.

1.0
May 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Trips to Portugal were nice, really fun culture

Cons

Incompetent leadership. Burned money like they would raise more forever

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