Uptake reviews

3.0

43% would recommend to a friend

(262 total reviews)

Adam McElhinney

56% approve of CEO

36% positive business outlook

Uptake has an employee rating of 3.0 out of 5 stars, based on 262 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Uptake employee rating is 22% below average for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

262 reviews
1.0
Jan 19, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* Electronic adjustable standing desks for nearly every employee * Free snacks * Drink machines with lots of choices * meeting room scheduling and AV equipment is easy to use * Unlimited Vacation (at least there used to be)

Cons

* unlimited Vacation - it is nice to have when you work there, but doesn't help you if the company decides to lay you off (like they recently laid off 51 people) or fire you with little to no cause. It doesn't accrue or payout so when you exit (by your own will or their's) you will realize it was set up that way to begin with. * Open office plan * Awful progress program - The performance review and progress program changed 4 times when I was there, and none of them were effective. * Pay will not increase, and you will almost certainly not be recognized for your contributions. You will hear during your performance review that "HR screwed up" or other excuses to not reward you even though you are an "A player", and exceeded all of your goals. You will not be promoted. * One of my managers who was there for almost a year and a half was fired at the end of the day by his boss, who called in remotely to do it. That is the kind of culture you get here. * Decisions are political instead of being data driven. You may find this surprising because this is supposed to be a data company with an "answers platform", but you at no point will you see any justification or data behind any decision. You will often have to do whatever the HiPPO (highest paid person's opinion) decides. * Lots of great people quitting or have quit * Weekly CEO emails are nonsensical. The CEO is detached from the day to day experience of employees. They attempt to inspire and motivate, but they come off as egotistical and cliché. The CEO has had a year of them put into a hardcover book titled "Sunday Thoughts" and littered them throughout the office. * The bureaucracy around acquiring anything is hair-pulling-out frustrating. You want to try a new piece of software for your team because the other internal version of software is either slow or always down? You have to spend 6 months going through acquisitions, security, engineering, to finally see it denied by a director in favor of "let's make the other one stable". You are better off just using it and not trying to follow the process. * Bad people are let go or reorganized into better positions - there have been multiple times when projects have been complete and utter failures by the same person, yet they are either promoted. * Dumb spending policies - ask for another laptop charger so you can work more at home after hours? Denied! According to the rules, it would cost too much money. At the same time, 16 60" HDTVs are bring installed into a wall down the hall, a podcast studio is being constructed, and a million dollar donation is being made to a prestigious University.

avatar
Uptake Response
8y
Thank you for expressing your frustrations during your time here. We continually assess how we can make it easier for people to operate at their own personal best. Our hope is that employees and managers are frequently sharing feedback with one another about performance and career interests and if an employee isn’t getting the feedback they see, we encourage them to ask directly for it. We are sad that you don’t think more positively of your time at Uptake and we certainly wish you all the best in your future endeavors.
1.0
Jan 10, 2018

Employee

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Tons of freebies, nice people but extroverted.

Cons

Lack of communication, no transparency. Lack of management in hiring and staffing predictions Non professionalism in terming employees- not separate as lacking privacy and professionalism in the communication

avatar
Uptake Response
8y
Thank you for providing this feedback. There's a lot of time and thought that goes into both how we hire and exit our employees and we are saddened to hear this was your experience. In regards to transparency, we have been clear that our fast-growing business required a shift in skill sets. As responsible stewards of the business, we are continuing to aggressively hire in areas that will support the future growth of the organization.
3.0
Dec 27, 2016

Doing things to simply get them done.

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Lots of hard-working, smart people Unlimited PTO (as or if approved) Free drinks and snacks Lunch stipend Lots of learning opportunities

Cons

So much politics. While the company preaches one thing, upper management works behind closed doors to figure out ways around certain benefits to appease middle-management. Cliquish and favoritism abound. If you are in, you are in. If you are not, for whatever reason, you are not. The executive team is a scramble and a few major positions have recently departed the company. Tasks are done to simply get them done. There is no thought into making processes better as the company scales and implementation of new tools is cumbersome, confusing and everything seems short-term oriented. Fast-paced doesn't mean a pace that has to be redundant. The office is cramped and probably over capacity. The company uses "culture" as their reasoning for why some people are or aren't a good fit without any real specific. There are very vague examples of the culture in action and their in-house definitions of clarity, flexibility, curiosity, etc., seem to benefit reasoning for why situations don't work instead of why they do. Even the CEO mentions that some employees simply don't "get it". Get what?

Viewing 31 - 33 of 262 Reviews

Glassdoor has 294 Uptake reviews submitted anonymously by Uptake employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Uptake is right for you.