Good intentions, terrible execution, lost leadership - Lead Software Engineer WorkHound Employee Review

1.0
Jul 20, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The service seems(?) to be helping truckers be happy with their work.

Cons

Where to start... This startup is focused around employee retention. Ironically, ~65% of their employees have been let go, most before being employed one year. My time was miserable. Leadership was paralyzed in decision making surrounding even the smallest challenges, but seemed to recognize that things needed to change to retain customers. Progress was slow and often only happened because someone (not leadership) just made a decision and implementing it. Many of us were asked to leave other jobs to come on board, myself included. A promise of meaningful individual impact and the opportunity to grow a business from the ground up was the pitch delivered to me. In reality, any opinion that differed from leadership was frowned upon and met with eventual termination. Several of us didn't get any reason other than "this isn't working out." It is worth noting that there were no "low performers" in the company during my tenure, simply people who performed their job as described, only to be let go without warning (every single one was a surprise, with one a few days before the company Christmas party). Compassion and empathy are non-existent in the culture. You will either blindly agree with every decision or non-decision of leadership or you will be let go. Even things as innocuous as bringing software bugs to attention, communicating directly (but not mean-spirited) about lack of accountability or preparedness from leadership, or noticing direct violations of long-established web security specs were met with harsh words. Equally concerning is a heavy culture of favoritism. If an employee is well liked, they are safe, regardless of performance. In a somehow real example of this, an employee quit in the middle of the day and asked for their job back several days later. This request was immediately granted without question or consequence, while others were terminated without communicated reason or prior warning. As a final thought, it's my suspicion that this company will never progress beyond the technical understanding of certain parts of leadership, which isn't particularly strong. I was routinely told things were too difficult or time-consuming to implement, when in reality, one person was able to implement them in about a week each time. Get involved at your own risk. A six person company should not have five of their first eight employees let go, yet here we are.

Explore other reviews about WorkHound

5.0
Aug 10, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I am so sick of working as a big corporate widget. Workhound is the exact opposite, and it is so refreshing to be a human being treated with dignity and respect and valued for my contributions.

Cons

Many people work remote. I miss the camaraderie of all working in the same office.

4.0
Nov 12, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Wonderful culture, competitive salary, room to grow

Cons

Lack of innovation, improvements for product took a long time, hard sell, so many layoffs

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All