Company culture and benefits declined post-IPO
Pros
Was at Remitly for four years, during which the company saw tremendous growth. When I started I really respected and loved my team and our company culture. I respected my colleagues and leadership for their commitment to the company mission and our customers, their competency in their roles, and their emotional intelligence. When I joined the team was fully remote due to COVID and the flexibility was nice as well. Benefits were really good, with quality health care plans available with no premium paid by employees.
Cons
Pay was always below market average. Unfortunately I also noticed a significant decline in all of the above benefits during my tenure at Remitly, especially after the company went public the focus seemed to shift away from our mission towards profitability, though that was never overtly acknowledged by leadership. There were subtle changes made to the mission statement that showed customers were no longer as central to company decision making, and we began to lose a lot of the leaders who I most respected for their competency, dedication, and emotional intelligence. We struggled to acquire quality new talent as well, and the quality of benefit offerings declined (i.e. while I was there the company switched to United Healthcare which caused significant issues for employees for all the reasons in the news, though was cheaper for corporate). Working in a technical role, I saw new leaders brought on who were not very competent in their technical skills, who seemed to be hired for their ability to 'manage' upper-level leadership/tell them what they wanted to hear. Expectations for technical roles changed abruptly, with no plan or support in place for employees to meet new expectations. I was fortunate to be comfortable with self-directed upskilling, but this seemed unfair to expect of employees who already worked more than 45 hrs per week 'for the benefit of our customers'. I was aware of several official complaints made by others about gender discrimination in terms of both career opportunities and significant pay gaps. I stayed at Remitly despite some of these changes for a while due to my respect and hope for our CEO Matt Oppenheimer, but heard that he recently stepped down from the role.
