Incompetent Leadership - Software Engineer SoundHound Employee Review

1.0
8 Jan 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Kind, engaged coworkers. Interesting projects and problems to solve

Cons

Executive Leadership is horribly incompetent. Priorities are unclear and shift rapidly, making it impossible to get any meaningful work done before your project is deprioritized for something else. There seems to be little vision or future planning, just rushing after whatever client seems important at the time. Post-IPO, employees are treated as dispensible and secondary to the egos of executive leadership. Compensation is very low - salary is low relative to other companies, there's no 401k matching and no bonuses. Employees are rewarded with stocks that have turned out to be worthless. There is little opportunity for career growth. Only a chosen few favorites get to go to conferences, because of costs, and there is no other opportunity for training. Work is so hectic that there is not even time for self improvement / reading recent papers during working hours. And with recent layoffs, this is probably only going to get worse. Working hours are long, with little recognition. Impossible deadlines are set and many hours of work are put in, just for the project to be canceled or deprioritized after weeks of 12 hour days and weekends. In theory, there is a recognition program, but whether you're nominated is highly dependent on your manager and what project you happen to be assigned to. Middle management (in the eng org) is all engineers who have been promoted to management, and don't have any experience with managing, to the detriment of their teams. There are no core values. Despite initiating an effort to create a set of company core values more than a year ago, there have been no results. As a result, the company is lacking in any standardized vision, and has been steadily declining in terms. Diversity is lacking, and bias training is something that has only very recently been introduced, after many complaints

Explore other reviews about SoundHound

5.0
2 Apr 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great people and hard problems.

Cons

None that I remember from then.

3.0
13 Apr 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Small company tech perks; currently riding the momentum of AI excitement. There are some solid, intelligent managers especially on the engineering side that seek the good of their team members and protect them from politics. Flexible work and no meaningful return to office enforced

Cons

SoundHound used to be a place where excellence mattered over ego, where commitment to doing the right thing trumped politics. Where the goalpost was building great products with quality underlying technology. The goalposts have shifted, but it’s not clear to where. No longer does a movement toward building the best tech drive the team. Instead, a slew of acquisitions have made insecure politicking and delaying decisions the drivers to how the company clunks along from quarter to quarter. A lack of unity at the top trickles down to senior and middle management. It is no longer clear what the product priorities are and why, and there are too many VPs to count (and it’s unclear what being a VP/exec means - there is no minimum size of department or scope of responsibility to get that title, so it loses its credibility). Lots of talk and not a lot of action. They say the more someone talks about something, the less they are probably living it. When leaders talk about the importance of leadership, authenticity, and integrity, it often indicates they are not actually embodying those words.

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