Pros
First wanted to shed some light as an insider on the difference in reviews on this page. I had some time this afternoon and thought I'd give my company a review and was surprised. There are a lot of positive 5-star ones and a lot of angry negative ones. A grain of salt moment for anyone actually looking for a job at Planful: 1. No, HR doesn't incentivize us to write positive reviews or fake them. There is no directive beyond gentle prompting in Slack to write these as a favor. I'm sure these reviews are not coming from people with complex feelings about their job, but there are plenty of happy people here who seem ok with taking 5 minutes to praise their company. Not a huge problem as I see it. 2. Like any tech company, Planful has experienced sudden layoffs throughout its lifespan. I do think some of the negative reviews make valid points, which I'll address in my "cons" section. I also think many are people who are angry they got fired–some for valid reasons. Pretty par for the course, especially in this industry. I don't work in HR but seeing these doesn't surprise me. Now onto the positives: I like working here. My coworkers are genuinely nice people, and despite the rah-rah of "culture" here, I do not personally experience the time-consuming "work is your family" culture I have experienced at other jobs. There's decent work-life balance... if you do your work. To me, as someone who has not always worked in tech, compensation is more than fair. I'm sure some salespeople who are used to fat bonuses might disagree. But I have no complaints and I hear their perks are good too, maternity leave etc. There is a decent ability here to "make things happen" if you play by a certain rulebook. I have found that generally, there are talented and smart people here, and most of them want to do the right thing for the product and Planful's customers. Overall I have felt supported and grown in my career at this job. No promotion yet but more responsibilities and very few people are getting raises in this economy. A lot of the stressors that exist here would be worse at other companies. I also never feel micro managed here which is huge. Day to day work environment is positive but not lax. I enjoy being busy and don't like my job to be too easy, there is always something to work on here. If you are looking for a job that treats you like a Google employee (and pays you like one) this might not be it. But it is also not the constant uncertainty and grind of a startup, and the space is fairly stable. Other pros–and this is not me kissing ass–the woman who is head of HR is very nice. When my flight was canceled to an event she worked overtime to get me on a plane and is easy to talk to. They do care about employees happiness in terms of what they can control.
Cons
There is, as other reviewers have mentioned, a definite "insider culture" here. I noticed it when I first started. However I would like to argue that if you are reasonably charismatic, can go with the flow, and don't hold too tight to convictions, it is not that hard to, well, get inside. It's not the type of company where everyone went to university together, or comes from the same family–though it's finance related so there is certainly a bit of that. However the reason I think this is a con is because I have seen firsthand how swift the punishment is for people who refuse to play. One reviewer mentioned feeling like people were suddenly let go with no reasoning: I can confirm this is true. Or rather that people are let go and it's hard to know how to avoid being let go yourself, because praise is plentiful but there are not many employee reviews. I guess just meet your targets, ha ha. But I have learned from experience that this type of culture can become a DEI issue, because many of the people who are least willing to "go with the flow" about certain things are either very intelligent and qualified (lots of people related to the product I have seen get frustrated and leave) or are diverse hires who have to work extra hard to fit in. People who are not white or indian definitely stick out. I think this is a fixable problem and might be different on other teams. Only other con that there is generally a lack of transparency around the product that I and others who use it find frustrating. I have spoken to people in marketing who have never used the product at all. Weird because I have felt transparency around company finances more than around the product, this has been the exact opposite at other companies. I think the product is fine, but not enough people know how to use it. It can come off as the classic tech conundrum "a solution looking for a problem". So if you are coming from a competitor company expecting things to be all about the product, this place is probably not for you. Feels like a marketing/sales focused company not a product focused one.
