Not a company worth working for anymore - Product SoundHound Employee Review

3.0
Jan 8, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Some old timers are still great to work with (although not sure why they are still sticking around as they will have much better opportunities elsewhere). Team culture and work life balance used to be great. Getting to work on interesting technological challenges was exciting

Cons

In the last year the company has gone from the next-big-thing to barely hanging on. It was a great company to work for until a year ago, with excellent camaraderie and a pretty awesome work culture. New hires, especially in Revenue and Sales, have brought a toxic work culture. Hiring mindset in all teams including product, sales, marketing has shifted from bringing the best talent on board to hiring mediocre employees who are willing to work for the lowest salaries resulting in poor standard of work and poor work ethic. Repeated restructuring of teams, unclear communication from leadership, and improper management of resources has run the company down. A company needing to layoff over 60% off employees in a span of few months is more reflective of incompetent management and lack of foresight from the founders rather than market conditions. Salaries are lower than market standard and heavily dependent on stocks which have gone underwater currently. Employees are forced to use personal vacation to cover mandatory Holiday shutdown. Would not recommend joining overall.

Explore other reviews about SoundHound

5.0
Apr 2, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great people and hard problems.

Cons

None that I remember from then.

3.0
Apr 13, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Small company tech perks; currently riding the momentum of AI excitement. There are some solid, intelligent managers especially on the engineering side that seek the good of their team members and protect them from politics. Flexible work and no meaningful return to office enforced

Cons

SoundHound used to be a place where excellence mattered over ego, where commitment to doing the right thing trumped politics. Where the goalpost was building great products with quality underlying technology. The goalposts have shifted, but it’s not clear to where. No longer does a movement toward building the best tech drive the team. Instead, a slew of acquisitions have made insecure politicking and delaying decisions the drivers to how the company clunks along from quarter to quarter. A lack of unity at the top trickles down to senior and middle management. It is no longer clear what the product priorities are and why, and there are too many VPs to count (and it’s unclear what being a VP/exec means - there is no minimum size of department or scope of responsibility to get that title, so it loses its credibility). Lots of talk and not a lot of action. They say the more someone talks about something, the less they are probably living it. When leaders talk about the importance of leadership, authenticity, and integrity, it often indicates they are not actually embodying those words.

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