PaperCut Software reviews

3.5

63% would recommend to a friend

(74 total reviews)

Chris Dance

67% approve of CEO

53% positive business outlook

PaperCut Software has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 74 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The PaperCut Software employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

74 reviews
1.0
Jul 15, 2020

Absolutely toxic, with lots of sugar-coating

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Plenty of amazing people at the worker level. Mostly good work-life balance.

Cons

Generally clueless management (at all levels but the higher you look, the more so). Zero understanding of "quality" or "agile", going against all advice from people doing the work. As such, both the tech, and the org, are a mess. Even worse, there is a lack of respect towards workers, there is favoring buddies and lots of unequal treatment. Lots of brainwashing, "work family" talk, "culture" talk and other management speak; most without substance. The shiny office is still just a crowded, subpar, noisy, uncomfortable open-office.

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PaperCut Software Response
5y
Thank you for taking the time to submit your feedback. I’m so glad to hear that for the 1-2 years you contributed to PaperCut that you worked alongside such fantastic people. And thank you for that contribution. I’m very sorry however to hear that your experience with management did not mirror your experience with your other colleagues. It’s fair to say that during your time with us we were undertaking the largest transformation of our ways of working ever seen at PaperCut. Those changes have been uncomfortable at times, and it’s fair to say that they have created learning opportunities for everyone in the business including leadership. Scaling a company at pace, like PaperCut has done over the last few years, puts increasing demand on the senior leaders at all levels. I've heard it said that a CEOs role in a fast-growing company changes every six months. At times I agree, and I also recognise that our leadership capability has perhaps developed slower than we’d like. I can say that everyone at a leadership level is completely committed to doing the hard work in order to provide the leadership PaperCut needs. I also acknowledge that our approach to “Agile” development is maybe different to the way other product companies approach things. I too have felt that we've lost some of our nimbleness as we've grown. This is also one reason why we're currently reviewing our core principles to help nudge this a little - including how we approach both speed and quality. Overall, whilst the changes have at times been challenging, I am a big believer that we’re heading in the right direction. I am saddened to hear that you did not experience the substance behind our culture and felt unequal treatment. We do our utmost to ensure that our people feel heard and have the opportunity to raise any concerns, underpinned by our ‘A Workplace for Everyone’ guidelines as well as our whistleblower policy. I hear your concerns and I will work together with our People Experience team to ensure we raise more awareness around the various avenues available to our PaperCutters to raise any concerns around fair treatment. Finally, with our office in Melbourne. It’s true that our growth left us having quite a full office, and this is why we've recently expanded on our 2nd floor to create more space. Also, in a post-COVID world, we'll be more creative on how we use our space and working times, and I suspect we'll have a lot more room as a result of these changes. Once again, thanks for your contribution over your time at PaperCut. If you’d like to reach out to discuss further, I’d be happy to catch up virtually for a (COVID-safe) coffee or to chat with you via email.
1.0
Aug 6, 2025

Destructive culture

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Nice office environment Bonus program

Cons

Controlling CEO who thinks he knows better than anyone Ridiculous performance evaluation process that is basically a popularity competition People who offer alternative thoughts are viewed negatively. People in the “in group” ie. boys club can do no wrong despite incompetence. Treatment of staff the CEO wants to get rid of in the past has been disgraceful and illegal.

2.0
Aug 6, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- PaperCut has hired some truly exceptional people. A very high concentration of good, kind, smart people (although there are certainly the exceptions who prove the rule) - There are some enduring aspects of what was clearly once an amazing company culture - The people here care SO much about the company's success, for better or worse - Incredibly beautiful office space in the Americas, EMEA office space is also quite nice - An internal commitment to DEIB principles (although external mentions seem to have been minimised of late), however toothless initiatives may be - Reasonably good benefits

Cons

- Very few opportunities for growth and development. There is an advancement ceiling outside of Australia, with leadership constantly hired in above and zero effort to cultivate existing talent - Extremely poor middle management. Most managers are incredibly overburdened with too many reports, too many meetings, too many competing priorities. You will get nowhere unless you push for it, hard - CEO (also the sole owner and sole remaining founder) is very poorly liked and is well-known for micromanaging reports. He does not have a desk at the Melbourne office and instead spends his days walking around the office watching over people's shoulders. He is also both the CEO and the Head of Product. Everyone seems to be in agreement that him having this dual role is detrimental to the company's success and culture - Poorly defined company strategy that even executives struggle to concisely articulate, far too many competing priorities and far too much tendency to drop everything to handle a hot issue - Poor psychological safety, especially for marginalized people. I know too many people who have burned out or are burning out. I also know of too many cases of unacceptable workplace behaviour that have been left largely unaddressed. There are, too, cases that have been sufficiently addressed. But just too many exceptions for it to feel like a truly safe workplace - PaperCut states a lot of values that it fails to live by. While it is a B Corp and espouses care for DEIB and for the environment, these initiatives are nearly entirely lip service at this point. I believe at one point they were genuine initiatives but most of the people responsible for driving them have either become overburdened by BAU work (which is expressly prioritised), been laid off, or quit. I think the degree to which the values are lived also depends on which office location you work at, the Americas office being significantly better than either of the other two offices - Large gender pay gap that speaks to pervasive workplace misogyny. I guess this is the norm in the corporate world, though! - PaperCut has made it mandatory for employees to come in 3 days a week (recently upped from 2). This change has been met with significant, persistent feedback, but all of this feedback has been ignored, at times extremely pointedly. The policy is also incredibly haphazardly applied, as many senior managers are fully remote, while their reports are forced to come into the office. It's an odd dynamic to be required to show up when your boss isn't even there. It also creates a feeling of locked-in hierarchy, especially as requests to go remote from existing employees are met with extensive bureaucracy - My compensation was just under living wage. I was significantly undercompensated per the company's own schema but that schema is so obtuse and management so absent that it was hard to advocate on my own behalf - Overwork is highly normalised. Many of my coworkers worked upwards of 10-20 hours of overtime every week without additional compensation (most roles are salaried) - Reviews and promotions process is incredibly opaque and your ability to achieve a promotion seems to depend on who your manager is - Constant change in my job responsibilities, constant arguments between managers over what it should entail - The C-suite is entirely white and the only woman is the head of HR (there are women on the advisory board, but as an employee it was incredibly unclear how much remit they have) - C-suite executives have openly commented that burnout of senior staff is inevitable on account of the CEO's commitment to a churn-and-burn strategy. Disagreement between C-suite executives is incredibly plain to see

Viewing 25 - 27 of 74 Reviews

Glassdoor has 78 PaperCut Software reviews submitted anonymously by PaperCut Software employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if PaperCut Software is right for you.