Pros
- Full of switched-on, motivated, supportive people. Broadly speaking, Intercom has a surprisingly healthy culture compared to the way it can be sometimes in tech. - Solid salary and benefits, and management is genuinely encouraging of people making the most of them (including time off). - Lots of potential for the product/company on the whole to be successful.
Cons
I have experienced more burnout this year than I have probably ever experienced in my career. While many parts of the company are probably great places to work, the part of the org I am in isn't a good place to be at all right now (even discounting other factors due to Covid-19 etc). Despite crystal clear signals in terms of low engagement for this pocket of the company on recent engagement surveys, as well as direct written feedback representing the wider team being bubbled up to leaders/managers outlining the core problems (constant high pressure to deliver and keep others unblocked regardless of capacity or quality/process concerns, very unclear how to progress on the career ladder in practical terms, etc), combined with exit interview feedback from recent departures—leadership seem to be very slow to act in ways that represent genuine understanding/desire to change, or that actually stand a chance of making it better for the people who are being messed around while remaining under pressure. Seems like there is low trust from leaders/managers that people below them are capable, so in this part of the company at least, there is tons of scrutiny over work that frankly leaders shouldn't need to have input into/approval over. This in turn ends up killing almost all sense that there's any space or room for people to grow, progress, move up the career ladder and take on increased responsibilities. Instead, leaders dangle high profile projects as opportunities for people to prove themselves, but then load teams and people up with additional pressure and responsibilities. When people (unsurprisingly) struggle to deliver on the balance across multiple asks, it's framed as poor performance rather than poor management. Lip service is paid to making improvements, and there is some evidence that movement is starting in positive directions (full credit to the people driving that, but it isn't coming from the leaders!), however it all feels like too little too late after a range of crappy decisions/management choices from leaders in 2020.