Brilliant individual contributors, incompetent middle management, out of touch CEO - Anonymous employee EDB Employee Review

2.0
3 Dec 2024
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Top 1% engineering talent across the board, from database development to cloud-native. Remote-first culture, wellness Fridays (1 Friday off per month). Lots of autonomy and trust, for those wiling to take initiative.

Cons

Company is coasting on revenue from a bygone era, when its technical leaders made EDB a leader in the Postgres community. Wasting untold sums of money to pay incompetent middle management to waste everybody's time. Many (not all) dev managers have never used the product and do not understand it at any technical level. To fill the gap and protect their job, they call pointless meetings and spend time building their fiefdoms, more concerned with toxic politics than building a good product. Most of them wouldn't know what a good product is, because they don't understand the details beyond some funny-sounding words that fit together in a list of priorities. The CEO is out of touch with the industry and community, a problem compounded by the fact that he's surrounded by "yes men." He places an inexplicable amount of trust in an utterly incompetent CMO. The XLT takes the CEO way too literally. Nobody is willing to tell him "no" or translate his (actually decent) strategic vision to practical priorities.

avatar
EDB Response
1y
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. We appreciate your recognition of the deep engineering talent at EDB, our remote-first culture, and our commitment to autonomy and wellness. We also want to acknowledge the serious concerns you've raised. Feedback—both positive and critical—is essential to our growth. While we don't agree with all the characterizations in your review, we understand that perceptions of leadership, organizational structure, and decision-making deeply influence the employee experience. We are actively working to evolve EDB in a way that honors our Postgres roots while positioning the company for long-term success and innovation. This includes modernizing how we build and deliver products, strengthening collaboration across teams, and ensuring our leaders—at all levels—are accountable and aligned with our values and goals. We're especially focused on ensuring that our product vision is clear, consistent, and tied closely to our customers' needs. As part of that, we regularly assess our leadership structure, organizational design, and talent development strategies to improve how we operate. We’re committed to fostering a culture where constructive feedback is welcomed and where team members feel empowered to speak up and influence change. If you're open to continuing the conversation in a more direct and solution-oriented forum, we would value that opportunity. Thank you again for your contributions to EDB and for sharing your perspective.

Explore other reviews about EDB

5.0
30 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good company good pay good team

Cons

I dont remember any cons

avatar
EDB Response
3mo
Thank you for your response, we truly appreciate your feedback. We value all of our employees and are excited for you to continue your journey with us at EDB!
1.0
30 Jun 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The people who actually do the work are smart and talented but are constantly dealing with poor decision-making by managers and a lack of clarity and communication about the goals and objectives that are constantly changing.

Cons

I joined EDB excited by the opportunity to help market innovative database technology, but my experience was disappointing due to a persistent lack of leadership and strategic direction. The biggest challenge was leadership. Priorities changed frequently, long-term strategy was unclear, and teams were often left trying to determine what success looked like on their own. Decisions are reactive rather than driven by a cohesive vision, making it difficult to execute meaningful go-to-market initiatives or measure impact. Another concern was the amount of time and resources invested in side projects that lacked a clear business case or measurable customer value. Instead of focusing on initiatives that could drive revenue, customer adoption, or competitive differentiation, the organization often pursued projects without well-defined objectives, accountability, or realistic timelines. This created confusion, diluted focus, and left core priorities under-resourced. Cross-functional alignment also suffered. Product, marketing, and sales were not always operating from the same playbook, resulting in shifting priorities, unclear launch priorities, and unnecessary rework. Employees frequently found themselves adapting to changing direction rather than executing against a stable strategy. There are talented, hardworking people throughout the company, and the technology has real potential. Unfortunately, strong individual contributors can only accomplish so much without consistent leadership, disciplined prioritization, and clear executive and managerial direction.

avatar
EDB Response
1d
Thank you for taking the time to write such a detailed and thoughtful review. We're proud of the talented people who make up EDB, and we take your concerns about strategic clarity, prioritization, and cross-functional alignment seriously. Feedback like this is valuable as we work to sharpen our focus, improve communication around priorities, and ensure our teams have the direction they need to do their best work. We're sorry your experience didn't live up to what drew you to EDB in the first place, and we appreciate you sharing this candidly as it allows us to continuously improve. We wish you continued success in your next chapter.
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All