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      UnderwriteMe

      Part of Pacific Life Re

      Engaged employer

      UnderwriteMe Reviews

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      3.1

      49% would recommend to a friend

      (47 total reviews)

      Andrew Doran

      75% approve of CEO

      46% positive business outlook

      Ratings by category

      3.8

      Work/Life balance

      3.7

      Compensation and benefits

      3.6

      Diversity and inclusion

      3.1

      Career opportunities

      2.9

      Culture and values

      2.9

      Senior management

      UnderwriteMe has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 47 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The UnderwriteMe employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      47 reviews
      2.0
      5 Mar 2024

      What a balls up.

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      For many years it was an exciting, challenging and highly collaborative env built around a flat mgt structure that accepted risk in the pursuit of innovation. Some great foot soldiers remain in the trenches, hence the 2 stars.

      Cons

      In recent years mgt change has killed all of the positives. A series of bad choices at the c-suite level has resulted in in-fighting, no real strategy, and a re-org that which will take years to recover from. I expect some sycophantic UME lackey will respond by saying I was a victim of the re-org or challenging what I’ve said. Such defensive responses are clearly signs of a company in trouble. Leaving was one of the best career decisions I have ever made.

      avatar
      UnderwriteMe Response
      1y
      Thank you for taking the time to provide your thoughts. We are sorry to read how you feel. We appreciate that as a business there will be decisions made that will not please everyone but every decision that is made is for the collective good of everyone at UnderwriteMe and to help achieve our goals. However, we take your feedback onboard. We wish you all the best for the future.
      1.0
      18 Jan 2024

      Poor Leadership

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Lots of the day-to-day Individual Contributors are smart, collaborative and personable people Compensation is pretty reasonable Good IT equipment (most use Mac's)

      Cons

      TLDR; I wouldn't recommend anyone I care about working here. Declining culture. This has steadily declined over the last 12 months or so. It's become the sort of place that makes people come into the office because it's an arbitrary day of the week, despite some people being initially recruited on a remote-first basis. That's further compounded by the office being too small for everyone, so people travel into the office to be on video calls with remote people. Genius. Poor leadership pursued an approach that recently led to many redundancies across product and tech. Good people undoubtedly hurt. There's also a lack of alignment and collaboration across leadership. Some of the leaders don't pursue open communication and collaboration, instead preferring to 'politically manoeuvre' as someone else so eloquently put it. I've personally witnessed undermining comments and conflicting strategies. If you are familiar with the term HiPPO, then you should expect that amongst some parts of the leadership. Just make sure you agree with everything a particular key individual suggests and you'll be fine. Strategically I think they have a challenge too. The two largest insurers in the UK aren't on the platform (public information). If they can't get them onto the platform, how long will users remain? Competitors who offer whole-of-market could relatively easily eat into their market share if they develop a compelling alternative.

      avatar
      UnderwriteMe Response
      2y
      Thank you very much for taking the time to provide your feedback. It is great to hear that you enjoy the colleagues that you work with, and are satisfied with your compensation & IT equipment. It is disappointing to hear that you feel the culture of UMe has declined over the last 12 months. We did make changes to the structure of our business during the 4th quarter of 2023. These changes were vital in order to ensure that we continue our journey to be a fully product led business. I understand that the departure of some people from UMe has been unsettling and difficult, but we believe that we treated those that left in a fair and compassionate manner. The Leadership Team (LT) expect all employees to attend the quarterly business updates in person, otherwise we do encourage teams to regularly collaborate, and this easier to do in the office environment. We do not stipulate the frequency of office attendance, but it is important in order to build strong working relationships, share ideas and solve problems. Our aim is to develop cutting edge products, and close working with our colleagues is key to achieving this. As with all organisations, we accept that there are business challenges, but we feel that we have the right structure and are aligned in our approach to overcome them. Thank you again for your feedback. Many thanks, Nana – AVP, People
      1.0
      17 Oct 2023

      A tech company led by non-tech leaders

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Owned wholly by Pacific Life Re so good benefits (including redundancy package). Swanky new colour coordinated London office complete with a working coffee machine, free milk, super comfy seating and even board games.

      Cons

      During my tenure, the leadership team changed several times (I saw four Head of Tech/ CTOs) and with each change, a restructuring of the teams shortly followed. This repeated reorganisation of teams, combined with high staff turnover, has led to inconsistency of workload and focus for teams, the creation of a constant fire- fighting and hole-filling environment, and ultimately signals weak, indecisive and inexperienced leadership. I do not recommend UnderwriteMe if you are looking for a tech role. I do not recommend UnderwriteMe if you are based in the UK.

      avatar
      UnderwriteMe Response
      2y
      Hi it's Xander from the current leadership team. Thanks for taking the time to write a review. I agree that our relationship with our parent company means we have the stability and quality leadership that so many start ups and scale ups lack with their constantly pursuit of funding rounds. We have all the benefits of a well-established company with all the energy, pace, agility (and frankly, fun) of a scale up. I think of it as the best of both worlds! I'm glad you like the new office space - there's been lots of positive feedback on how it adapts perfectly to multi-use from stand-ups to shares to workshops and that there's space which works for those who like to be social and those who want to do more quite, deep concentration or confidential work too. You just can't put a price on a working coffee machine either!! I disagree that our turnover is high. We actually have turnover that is half of some tech industry comparators but we are not complacent and want to keep upgrading our employee experience. Winning a Company Culture award earlier this year was a great external validation that we are on the right track. I do however agree that there is a lot of change to grapple with but such is life in a nimble, agile start up that responds to both its external environment and it's own growth path to becoming a fully product-led business. In some ways the challenges that come up feed the need for variety that a lot of us have and we love to stretch ourselves. It's part of why we love working for a tech scale up! However, I can appreciate for people who prefer the much more traditional, slower moving nature of a large financial services institution, where life is very predictable and cyclical would find it difficult to feel at home.
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      ReviewsUnderwriteMe reviews

      Glassdoor has 48 UnderwriteMe reviews submitted anonymously by UnderwriteMe employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if UnderwriteMe is right for you.