Operations - Anonymous employee Upstart Employee Review

2.0
Aug 26, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Company Culture: - Lower managers and the people here are fun to work with and genuinely good people. - Lots of banter on the office floor which keeps shifts fun. - The environment is relaxed, you can wear casual clothes - Hours and schedule are flexible. Technical Info: Shifts are: 6 - 2:30, 11:30 - 8 for credit analyst. You may have to work a weekend day. - There is a lot of contract workers. As a contractor, you will make $18 - 22 an hour. Once converted you will start at $23. The length of time it takes to get converted and the amount of work it takes to get converted will vary.

Cons

- There is a lot of office politics. Only office favorites get promoted or raises consistently. - Upper management does not take the input and advice from employees seriously if it is outside their own opinion. They will say that Upstart is a meritocracy but this is simply not true. Do not drink the koolaid. - Raises/promotions realistically only happen once a year, and only if you do extremely well on your peer review and enough of upper management likes you. - Your workload will increase beyond the initial job offer but your pay will not. If anything you may get a title change and simply be expected to work more. All in all, this is a great place to start your career but not to stay and work long term. I am, however, grateful for all the life friends I have made. Recently a lot of people have been leaving at a rate of one person per week. Don't stay longer than you have to if you can help it. They have been known to extend job offers for new hires and then take back offers last minute based on the needs of the company. Management has recently been trying to host more events to boost company culture and moral. This was after receiving poor results on an internal happiness survey. It may be too little too late for some.

Explore other reviews about Upstart

5.0
Jun 11, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Promising product, competitive pay, lots of work

Cons

Unstable, leadership is hit or miss

2.0
Jun 10, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Compensation. Only reason I don't give them 1 star. - Remote Work - Pretty diverse

Cons

- incredible amount of politics, process, and red tape for an engineering org on the smaller side - Chaos. There were three re-orgs between Fall 2025 and Spring 2026. Actual madness. - High turnover is embraced. They will gladly let go of long time high performers with years of tribal knowledge and hire someone new with more experience. You eventually up with a team where everyone has hardly any domain knowledge. - Fear driven environment. You will hear performance mentioned every week in company comms and how they want everyone to be X% more productive with AI. - Speaking of AI usage, they take it to the next level. Slack messages, Jira tickets, code, design documents. All made with AI. It will be the most overly verbose word slop you can think of and you'll get a pat on the back for being so thorough. My manager seriously told me how she just copied a technical design doc into chatgpt and read that. Wild. - Cutthroat. With the new focus on productivity gains and measuring performance with PR volume, LOC, and token usage, people hardly review PRs anymore because it gets them nothing. Be prepared to spend lots of time begging your team and other teams for reviews and then waiting. Unless you are good at playing politics and have the time / energy for it, I would avoid this place at all costs. If you are just looking for something short term that pays well and encourages you to use AI for any and everything, this place works well, just don't expect to stick around for long as you're considered a veteran at 2 years with all the turnover they have. I'm glad I left for something else when I did because I see on linkedin they've had more layoffs since.

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