Once Great Environment but ... - Machine Learning Engineer SoundHound Employee Review

Great people and hard problems.

None that I remember from then.

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

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.