Maturing company doing all the right things to grow
Pros
I've felt right at home from the moment I stepped into Validity's doors, two weeks before the pandemic hit. That's because I was looking for a Boston-area company with seasoned leaders, a high-performing and respected marketing team, an emphasis on scaling operations and revenue, and a product that leads its niche market. Validity checked all of those boxes. But it didn't stop there. I've felt privileged to establish strong relationships within marketing, as well as cross-functional relationships with counterparts across the country. I've had the opportunity to assemble a great team that makes me proud. As a rule, we have strong personalities that are proud of their work but egoless enough to collaborate and take criticism, in the interests of doing better. There are a LOT of negative reviews about Validity on Glassdoor. A lot. It's been mystifying to me to see how a company that's doing a lot of the right things can be so scorned by so many departing employees... but since I joined "Validity proper" I'm not suffering from the cultural disconnect that employees from acquired companies are dealing with. Having been on both the acquiring and the acquired side in my career, I know it's a hard transition that many acquired employees never make. Of course it's not all ponies and rainbows; no job ever is, given the natural tension between sales, marketing, and product when trying to run fast. And YMMV depending on the role you're in. But I've seen enough unhealthy environments in my career to recognize them and their cause, and what I see here is a company trying to maximize future success while also trying to establish a culture of accountability, trust, and respect, and I'm very much on board with that plan.
Cons
Validity moves surprisingly fast, for a company this size, and that takes some getting used to. There's a strong bias towards hitting dates first, and cleaning up the mess afterwards. Those of us uncomfortable with that are helping by adding more process so that when "fire, aim, ready" is necessary, we can be flexible enough to support it. No matter how 'woke' they may be, the company's leadership team is white men. Fortunately, I believe they're aware of that, and they continue to seek ways to be more diverse and supportive. Having expanded the portfolio through multiple acquisitions, our offices are geographically distributed and often represent different subcultures. Working to unite those cultures is still a work in progress (and COVID hasn't helped, by preventing visits to other offices.) The arrival of COVID led to a period of uncertainty that resulted in layoffs in May, and we lost a lot of good people. We're starting to backfill and hire again, but there's still more work than there are hands to complete it. (That's better than the alternative.)
