Overworked Teams and Leadership Without Direction - Lead Software Development Engineer In Test (SDET) Freshworks Employee Review

2.0
May 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1. Salary is decent and competitive enough to attract talent. 2. Hyderabad leave policy is slightly better Chennai/Bangalore. 3. Office infrastructure is flashy — MacBooks, 27-inch monitors, standing desks, good-looking office spaces. 4. You will meet some genuinely talented engineers trying to hold things together.

Cons

1. Terrible work-life balance. Be prepared to work extremely long hours regularly. People sacrificing personal life for work are openly praised in forums and leadership discussions. 2. Outdated tech stack in multiple areas. Feels stuck in the past while leadership keeps pretending it is a modern product company. 3. Leadership lacks vision. Most product decisions feel like copying competitors instead of building anything original. 4. Chennai-centric culture is very visible in leadership behavior and decision-making. 5. Collaboration culture is poor. Many old-timers won’t even acknowledge messages unless managers are looped in. 6. Constant restructuring, confusion, and politics. 7. Leadership talks a lot about culture and transparency, but ground reality is completely different. 8.Layoffs can happen anytime, regardless of performance, ownership, or impact. 9.Execution teams are overworked while management layers keep increasing. 10.QA org restructuring was a complete joke. Built management layers only to later remove large chunks of actual QAs doing delivery work. 11.Internal recognition often feels more political than merit-based. 12.Free food exists, but quality is average at best. 13.Easily one of the weakest C-suite leadership groups I have seen in my career.

Explore other reviews about Freshworks

5.0
Mar 17, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good culture to work here,

Cons

Location is quite far, travel is tedious

avatar
Freshworks Response
3mo
Thanks for the review--we think it's pretty fun here too! Best of luck on what's next.
2.0
May 14, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Mostly good salary/benefits - Nice office - Some decent coworkers

Cons

If you have to do mass layoffs of hundreds of employees every 18 months, leaders need to look in the mirror to find the true problem with the business. Because it's not the competent people that actually get things done that are being laid off with no warning and limited severance. Don't expect any job security here. Also: - Still behind on certain benefits (extremely limited 401k match and bad expense policies not in line with US standards) - Work life balance is hard with large teams in both India and the US - Some employees who have been here 10+ years are completely unresponsive and largely incompetent but still get raises, promotions, and aren't ever scrutinized by leadership. The politics game runs deep here.

4
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