Intercom reviews

Intercom has changed a lot in the time I've been here, and is suffering from some of the usual pains that come from growing from a 150-odd person startup to a 650+ sized business with many more different teams. Some teams/areas have definitely felt the pain of this more than others - especially areas with more inexperienced managers - but generally I feel confident that the company is going in the right direction. The leadership team acknowledge and actively work to address issues as they come up. They ask for feedback from employees regularly, and take it seriously. The culture isn't going to be for everybody. It's fast paced, can be intense at times, and requires you to be flexible and adapt as things change. Standards are high. That doesn't mean it's a cut-throat, work-16-hours-a-day, everyone out for themselves culture though - it's still friendly and supportive. The exec team is still very involved in some day-to-day decisions and in the details, which can be challenging and frustrating at times.

First and foremost the biggest issue is gender inequality. I regularly witnessed women get talked over or be completely ignored in meetings and left in the shadows of loud, pretentious men who are good at managing up. I consistently noticed that women were rarely present in leadership reviews I took part in. Middle management is inexperienced or non existent in most cases, while leadership micro manages and blocks many projects from shipping on time, if at all. Many late nights of wasted work happen purely based off personal disinterest in the work with no actual constructive feedback. To top it all off there is no real process in place and cross functional communication is terrible. Everyone wants to blame everyone else and is looking for someone to point the finger at rather than working together to solve the problem. If you have a manager that you can be friends with, you’ll be fine, if not you’ll likely get caught up in the chaos, blocked on projects and passed up for growth opportunity. “We are not a perks company” is regularly messaged yet the salary is far below competitors. Offering benefits to your employees isn’t a bad thing and you can do it without going overboard. It doesn’t help that the “unlimited vacation” policy isn’t actually respected and will quickly be held against you if they need a reason to knock on your performance. It’s a shame things have gotten as bad as they have because the product and brand have a lot of potential. But when you only invest in certain people you’re not going to accomplish much in the long term.