Moz reviews

For a company that's been around for 15 years, it still feels really startup-y at times, in concerning ways. For example, they still know next to nothing about who is using their product or in what ways, yet they're making business decisions about tackling certain market segments without even understanding said segments at an actionable level. The company is customer-friendly to a point that is actually detrimental - decisions to do things like adjust pricing or sunset rarely-used products are met with extreme internal resistance for fear of upsetting a handful of customers. Engineering teams are matrixed/interdependent in a way that I've never seen at any other software organization, which makes accomplishing even the smallest task necessitate tons of meetings, prioritization decisions, and horse-trading. Too many mid-level managers control fiefdoms in ways that makes it easy for them to foot-drag on anything they're not interested in doing. During my tenure, we spent a lot of time talking about how we were trying to do too many things - and yet we never decided to do less. Overall, a company with a lot of individual talent that unfortunately doesn't add up to much when paired with unclear strategic direction and "legacy" employees that aren't interested in operating in a more effective way.

The last few years have brought a ton of change at Moz, including in strategy and senior leadership. It'd be a difficult place for those who aren't comfortable in an environment where strategic direction regularly shifts. In addition, all that change has often made it difficult for the company to function as a cohesive whole; quite a lot of time is spent revisiting planning and procedures. I do think that's a temporary issue, though, and it pales in comparison to the more positive aspects.