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First Resonance

Is this your company?

Sinking ship - Anonymous employee First Resonance Employee Review

1.0
26 Aug 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Very few pros if any. Fun coworkers

Cons

The company was plagued by rash, uninformed decisions and had no clear direction. The culture revolved around intimidation, micromanagement, and narcissism. Turnover was extremely high, almost every week someone either quit or was let go. Gossip and rumors spread like wildfire, creating a toxic and unstable environment. The product was consistently behind the competition and riddled with problems. Instead of focusing on meaningful improvements, leadership obsessed over cosmetic “make it look pretty” changes, most of which still failed. The product team operated entirely on guesswork, with no real industry expertise to guide decisions, leaving the roadmap scattered and misaligned with customer needs. A few valuable players kept the company afloat for as long as they could, but each of them was eventually pushed out. Leadership was the root of the dysfunction. The CEO, a mediocre engineer with no business acumen, consolidated all leadership under himself. He was so widely disliked that employees openly discussed the need for his departure. The COO came across as an old-school placeholder, adding little value and demonstrating no clear skills or direction.

Explore other reviews about First Resonance

5.0
30 Jan 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

* The mission was incredibly motivating, and the company stayed true to it. It is extremely rewarding to work on challenging problems like is the case in manufacturing. Of course, it is tough and at times it will feel extremely difficult, but those who worked hard learned an incredible amount in a short period of time here. * The CEO rewarded those who extended beyond their comfort zone to take on new responsibilities. Many people who worked at First Resonance came from other roles, and the company effectively molded them into leaders. Many people went from Customer Success to Product as an example or Product to Engineering. * Extremely talented people here.

Cons

* Hiring individuals at the cross-section of manufacturing and software is challenging. However, I did expect the company to hire more effectively. * This can be a con depending on who you are, working with a first time CEO is extremely tough. They are learning many things on the job as well that may at times feel like they go back and forth on topics. But at the same time, I have never had anyone push me to be better at my job and give very concrete examples, books, blogs, etc. to read to help reinforce the ideas that they taught. * Manufacturing is very tough and there is not a lot of room for error for mission critical software. I think the company over extended themselves early on, which made managing customers a challenge. I hope that over time, they remain focused on providing depth to the product they created to become the industry leader in factory software.

1.0
28 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

There are some really good people trying hard here

Cons

Leadership is a disaster. There are unrealistic asks of the team and then when it can't be done the front line team is criticized meanwhile no one is worried about failure to meet contractual customer commitments. I wasn't going to say anything about this company until I noticed all the 5 star reviews. They are bogus, at least most of them. I was personally asked to submit a 5 star review by leadership to help with "image" and be a "team player", just before my entire group was let go. start ups are fast-paced and can change on a dime, but beyond that, there is an integrity and honesty issue in the C suite. I wouldn't want someone to start working here and not know the truth, it is a dead end road and it will be unpleasant along the ride.

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