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Better than no job

Senior Software Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Klaviyo for 2 years
January 30, 2025
Boston, MA
2.0
Doesn't RecommendNeutral Outlook
Pros

You'll likely work with some talented people, and Klaviyo's pay is significantly better than average for Boston. WLB is pretty good for most teams, although on some teams it's atrocious. It's luck of the draw for the most part, but ask about the on-call load if you're considering joining.

Cons

The roadmap shifts constantly and there is very little quality work being done. Because roadmaps shift so frequently, people ship the smallest, most inconsequential features, and you'll put tons of effort into frankly embarrassing releases. None of my coworkers and I have done anything we're proud of in the past year. It's been hard to think of anything worthy of even being put on my resume since I've started working here. As an engineer, you spend months prepping for Black Friday, then once it's finally done you get one month of projects completely stagnating, and then the company takes 1.5 to 2 months just to figure out what it wants to do for the year before it goes on hiatus again once BFCM prep really ramps up.

Senior leadership is truly atrocious. Benefits are being taken away left and right. They gaslight us constantly and blame employees for changes that happen. They will take opportunities away that were promised or shift your team without any regard for whatever promises you were given. Even if you like the job that you have today, there are no guarantees that you'll actually keep any of the things that you like about it because the CEO and Chief People Officer have proved over and over again that their promises are empty. The CTO and CPO seem promising, but it's too early to tell how they'll be in the long run. The CFO clearly is running the show and, while she seems competent, I'm not sure this is making the company more successful in the future.

There are also many processes here that are broken, like bug triage and handling, planning, deploying, and testing, just to name a handful. It sucks because you'll spend so much of your day dealing with stuff that you have no control over. It's sucked the joy out of the few parts of my job I actually enjoy.

Advice to Management

To be honest, it wasn't bad before when it was a job with unique benefits, okayish culture, and good pay. You've taken away all the things that made it special, and now we're left with a job that pays well but at the price of career stagnation and dealing with bizarre negative decisions from leadership. I'm not sure why you would think anyone talented would want to stay under these conditions, so maybe go consider what the ramifications will be beyond the current quarter's earnings call for once.

Additional Ratings

Work/Life Balance
4.0
Culture and Values
1.0
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
3.0
Career Opportunities
2.0
Compensation and Benefits
4.0
Senior Management
1.0

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