Big mission, little trust - Anonymous employee Cloudflare Employee Review

2.0
Dec 6, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Standard issue startup perks (snacks, unlimited PTO, etc.) Unique mission Still a lot of smart people Amazing core product

Cons

You're a second-class citizen whose day-to-day experience will mostly depend on the maturity of your team and the capability of your manager - both vary wildly between micro- and absentee management. Even with a great team, the best employees tend to put in 2 years and leave, and only a handful stay past the 4 year mark. People are never prioritized over the increasingly unfocused mission of re-inventing the Internet. The management layer is a dangerous mix of inexperienced and underpowered. Many are overly concerned with how they are perceived by their bosses due to the cult of personality at the very top. Many are powerless as a lot of key day-to-day decisions are still filtered through the executive team. Headcount, compensation, and even final interviews still flow through the top. So, even a solid manager requires final approval from above them for any decision that really matters. This means many teams are understaffed and employees find themselves overworked and underpaid. Problems tend to get hidden instead of surfaced, become technical debt and just pile up until things start breaking. The company very accurately "lurches from one incident to another" as one reviewer put it, and the employees are the ones that have to clean up each and every mess.

avatar
Cloudflare Response
7y
"Question every remaining sacred cow" <- I love that! And so important as we grow and scale. I especially like reading this from someone who has been at the company for over 3 years, as you have good historical perspective and can play a big role in changing things. I hope you are doing this. The people and process stuff is more confusing to me tho. People are, literally, our highest priority and we have invested a lot in our teams and tools in the last few years. We aren't perfect, and have lots more to do , but I think we are on track. Would love to talk more. -janet

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