Pros
Edmunds has done a great job in the last 2 years at cultivating a corporate culture much like of many start-up companies, like Google, Facebook, etc. There is a lot of freedom, employee collaboration and the Employee Experience Team advocates innovative ideas that bring people together in inspiring ways. Some examples are “Thinking Thursdays” and Design Thinking Workshops, they offer creative outlets, like painting classes and iGnite. They also promote annual Hackomotive-thons and company get togethers, like “Summer Camp”. I learned a great deal about collaborating successfully, leveraging concepts and philosophies to successfully launch products, and better understand methodologies around the agile space – all which I believe helped further my experience in Product Management.
Cons
The management at Edmunds changes much too frequently, which creates uncertainty, doesn’t build trust (i.e., Trust is one of their core values, but frankly, it isn’t practiced) and overall, it means dysfunctional teams. There isn’t a sense of companionship among piers, nor is there any mentorship. They talk about building on strengths, offer performance reviews via “Fuel Your Potential”, but management simply doesn’t truly offer supportive or useful feedback to help employees grow to their fullest potential. This leads to unexpected surprises, mismanagement and at the end of the day, employees simply don’t have a voice. Edmunds talks about innovation, but instead is always catching up. Management is run like the “Good Ol’ Boys Club”. The Founder is rude, unapproachable and doesn’t understand relationships. This results in top down sentiment that simply isn’t inspiring, nor does it fuel inventiveness