Hopper reviews

After almost 7 years, I was laid off in a Huddle, by a Manager who had no business being a manager. I worked very hard for Hopper and they won't be able to find loyal employees to replace the ones they drop at a dime. Since being laid off, I've been sleeping better, lowered my antidepressants and feel as though my body has finally come out of flight or fight. When I started at Hopper in 2018, it was one of the few cool tech jobs, but those days are long gone. There is no longer real benefits, culture, or a healthy work life balance. There are so many amazing work cultures out there now - stay far away from this sinking ship.

To all future candidates who may be reading this review: If you are considering applying for a role at Hopper, don't, save your time and apply elsewhere. If you have already applied, withdraw your application. Run, don't walk, away from this company. The cons of working at Hopper FAR outweigh the few pros. 1. Senior leadership is incompetent, that is the CEO and the President. There is no planning from any of them. They hire on a whim, they will fire you on a whim. The CEO Fred spends company wide townhalls promoting his OTHER startup company and positions himself as some planet savior because he's trying to fight climate change with his other company. This has ZERO relevance to Hopper. Does he care about Hopper or his new company? The President, who is not a real co-founder regardless of what his socials say, is not qualified to run a company of this size. He has no idea what is going on until there is a board meeting. There is no yearly or quarterly planning. The financial's of the company are seemingly un-reviewed even though there is a CFO. These leaders have no idea what is going on and have no vision for the company. These leaders will also publicly shame you on Slack if you so much as even begin to question decisions. 2. Hopper has had a big layoff EVERY YEAR since 2020 without exception. Every Q4 employees fear for their jobs. If you are in the President's "circle" you'll probably escape the annual layoffs, but if you're not, good luck to you. 3. Transparency and communication from senior leadership is non-existent. The only time they will host a townhall is after a layoff. Half of that townhall is spent trying to put a positive spin on things; the other half is the CEO shamelessly talking about his other startup. 4. The culture is truly toxic. High performance is not rewarded whatsoever. Hopper will lay you off regardless of if you are a top performer and regardless of how long you have been with the company. Engineers who have been with the company 10+ years and built the company to where it is now are laid off without so much as another thought. Employees work under a constant shroud of uncertainty and fear that one random day they could be laid off with no sound justification. 5. Work life balance is poor unless you are on very specific teams. 6. There is no vision for this company. Every year there is a different product and business focus, there are no incremental or cumulative goals that give confidence this company will go anywhere. Unless the company is somehow miraculously bought by a competitor like Expedia, the equity is purely paper money. 7. There is no career growth. The STO model caps your growth. If you are a Senior Engineer and your team already has a Principal and Engineering Manager, well you're stuck on Senior forever.