Persefoni Reviews

QA understaffed. Repeated layoffs across the organization. Accidentally fired one of their best technical directors based on inaccurate information. Claims to be engineering focused company, actually focused on brand identity and social media engagement. Ships MVP features and congratulate themselves on LinkedIn. Lay off the engineers that built the MVP product, with no thought towards technical debt, maintenance. Execs heavily emphasize buy-in to brand identity and personal investment in the company. They reward this by laying your whole team off after the MVP feature is delivered. Engineers are effectively contractors, without their knowledge. You were hired to deliver a specific feature, after that feature is done, you will be laid off. Company will claim layoffs are due to "macroeconomic" factors, but this is contradicted by their actions, with multiple rounds of layoffs before the looming recession, and making layoffs alongside announcements of new rounds of funding.

Most of the ICs noted above are no longer at the company due to getting laid off or leaving the company. The company’s initial goals that were presented were valid and the culture was strong. Over the time I was there however, things rapidly deteriorated. Leadership wasn’t able to keep a track on what direction they want to go in from a business standpoint nor were they able to keep their word. In early 2023, after promising no layoffs adamantly for months they had abrupt layoffs that cut around 13% of their staff (the majority of which were women and PoC). The remaining staff were told not to speak about the layoffs publicly and had mixed messages on why, from financial to changing business goals. I’ll also note, this was a few short months after a large group of the company went on a week+ long non-business essential trip to Japan. Then, only a few months after the first round of layoffs there was another round of layoffs, the same day they announced their Series C1 funding. Now there’s been a third round and things are only getting worse in terms of morale and company culture. Product requirements are created at the whim of leadership (not user research or data) and there’s no clear competitive path forward for the product. I doubt they’re hiring any time soon so not sure if these reviews will provide context to anyone but if you’re considering working here I’d strongly recommend otherwise.