Aside from the three pros, literally everything else was terrible and stressful. Even in the week before starting at Charlie Health, I had a bad feeling. I was contacted by a former colleague of mine a few days prior to my start that Charlie Health had reached out to her for a reference. Not only had I not offered this person as a reference, I also hadn't worked with her in over a decade and it was in a role that was completely unrelated to my current field. I came to find out that the practice of unsolicited references is not only commonplace for all levels for candidates at final stages, they are mandatory. This was the first bad omen and things kept going downhill from there. Leadership expects everyone to work themselves to the absolute bone. I understand its a startup and there will be times where things need to be figured out as they come and you'll need to pitch in in an emergent situation. Things happen and its high growth days. However, every business process and interaction is quantized and distilled to metrics, which have no fluctuation or ability to be looked at with nuance, without being seen as being "lazy" or "not putting in effort". You will work harder than ever before and in all honesty, that work will still be picked apart. Leadership will literally comb through your calendar and if they don't agree with how you organize your day, it will be seen as slacking off. If you want to have any sort of work/life balance, do not even bother interviewing here. The expectation is that you are available 24/7/365, and anything not in line with that view is again viewed as "lazy". There is a distinct distrust between the leadership teams and the heads of the organization, especially when it comes to hiring decisions. Someone may get extraordinary feedback, but if there is any sniff of a "resume gap", its seen as suspect that the person is a potentially poor employee. Also, don't expect to get an offer if you were laid off. Its viewed as something that only happens to "poor performers". Even if an explanation is given in the interview process, leadership will still go out of their way to do backchannel references to verify someone isn't lying. They will go all the way up to C-Suite of your previous company instead of trusting their own interview process to determine great candidates and that their employees can dig into the rationale for the layoff. The overarching attitude is "everyone is a liar, trust no one". You will be lowballed when it comes to salary. Salary bands exist, but aren't followed or even referenced all that much. It usually comes down to what the founder(s) feel they want to pay, how they can get someone to say yes for the bare minimum, and if market research was done, it was usually nothing more than looking at Glassdoor bands for similar roles. You'll also have less than a day to accept an offer, with no wiggle room, so if you have other opportunities in process, best of luck. Leadership at one point berated my team to the point that it made one of my colleagues have to go off camera because they were sobbing. Apparently because of the team's inability to get things done based on their timelines and despite multiple mitigating factors, "kids were dying as a direct result of this team". That statement is a direct quote. This was swept under the rug as being "passion for making sure the company succeeds for our clients". For being a mental health company, there is an absolute culture of fear, frustration, and unpleasantness. There was very little idle chit-chat or smiling on cross functional meetings. If leadership was on the call, there was a distinct chill across the meeting and virtually no open discussion. Speaking of mental health, I've never had the stress of a job pour over into my personal life as much as this one. It got to the point that my partner kept making comments that I was miserable and stressed constantly. I dreaded waking up each morning, and when I did get done with work, would sigh; not in relief mind you, but in exasperation knowing that I had to sign back on the next day and crush myself to try to appease a leadership team who I didn't respect and ultimately, did not respect me. Its taken me months to work through the entire experience to even feel neutral again. The founders state that they care about the mental well being of their clients, but it comes at the cost of those working to serve those clients in the first place.
