Retool Reviews

While every start-up has their growing pains, the cons seriously outweight the pros at Retool. (1) Bad comp, little reward. Equity post series B has been abysmal, and great candidates have rejected us time and time again. There are little to no refreshers, even if you perform at the top of your level. Your wins, even your team's wins are not rewarded. (2) Opaque promotions. There is a rubric and guideline, yet very few folks have seen an actual promotion despite high gradings according to the rubric. Promotions are dangled in front of high performers, and those people will work very hard to only be told "next time." It's egregious and borderline exploitative. (3) High churn. For a series C thriving company the churn rate is abnormally high, not only in the lower ranks but across senior levels as well. Most OG employees and senior leaders left before their 4 year vesting period. Lack of growth opp and comp causes really talented high performing people to leave left and right. The verbatim lack of concern regarding internal churn addressed during all hands is highly alarming. (4) Gap of mid managers. When a start-up grows, mid-managers are so key to upholding the pace of work as hiring ramps. Bc of churn, there is a large dearth of talented mid managers. Folks are not being promoted internally into these roles (and so they leave), new hires are brought in but are not set up to be successful (so they also leave). This results in the company being incredibly green heavy. (5) No investment in culture. Our leadership AND board are 100% white males outside of our CEO David. All female leaders have left and the rehires have been primarily white men. It's embarrssing in this day in age, and ironic when the company touts its "diversity." Leadership heavily favors Eng publically, and GTM teams are very obviously second class citizens in this company. There is a clear lack of empathy from David and the rest of leadership towards anyone who is not a white male eng. (6) Lack of leadership and accountability from leadership. Retool emphasizes transparency, but it's cherry picked transparency. There is very little insight into how decisions are made, there is little to no unification of product vision, and business goals are flipflopping every month. It's unfortunate to watch the sales and GTM teams get blamed time and time again for not hitting revenue targets when much of it can be attributed to the lack of direction from leadership to begin with. (7) Top down driven, lack of feedback loops. It's really hard to give feedback at Retool, particularly to leadership. Feedback often falls on deaf ears and the culture has shifted away from asking questions in the open to whispers in private rooms because of the lack of action. Folks have given up on trying to influence the business because leadership is caught up in their own bubble and unfortunately disconnected from the realitiies of their own employees on the ground. Customers suffer as a result.

1. **Leadership is not diverse**: The lack of diversity at the highest levels of leadership is not only glaring but also unacceptable in this day and age. All female executives have left and they seem to only prioritize rehiring men. It's disheartening to see a company that claims to be progressive and inclusive yet fails miserably in ensuring representation at the top. This glaring absence of diversity sends a clear message that the company is more interested in maintaining the status quo than promoting equality and inclusion. 2. **Leadership does not listen to its employees**: It's disheartening to work for a company where employees' voices fall on deaf ears. The leadership seems to be entrenched in their own ideas, completely disconnected from the realities of the workforce. It's a very top-heavy company and despite hiring great talent, leadership never actually listens to outside ideas. The lack of open communication seriously stifles creativity and fosters a toxic work environment full of projects that go nowhere. 3. **Leadership does not value culture**: Company culture should be the lifeblood of any organization, but it appears that this company's leadership pays it little more than lip service. They fail to recognize that a healthy and inclusive culture is the foundation for a motivated and engaged workforce. Instead, they prioritize profit over the well-being of their employees, resulting in a culture of apathy and disengagement. Wins aren't celebrated whatsoever and there were hardly any big company events in my time there. 4. **Leadership lies about promotions to make you work harder**: Perhaps the most egregious offense of this company is its deceitful practices regarding promotions. Employees are promised opportunities for advancement, only to find themselves trapped in a never-ending cycle of unfulfilled promises. The leadership's dishonesty in this regard is nothing short of exploitative, using false hopes to extract more effort from employees without any intention of delivering on their commitments.