Smartsheet

There are lots of passionate people who genuinely care about the quality of the product and customers.

The stock price has been doing well, and the ESPP program is very market competitive.

Bellevue location is adjacent to the Transit Center, which is great, since there isn't available parking.

A story I used to hear from several co-workers was "I know in tech people typically move from job to job every few years, but I could genuinely see myself staying here for the rest of my career." I don't hear that sentiment anymore.

Over the last year or so, a large number of veteran people who made Smartsheet the thing it is today have departed the company, with some key people not by choice, due to changes in strategy for the company. Some exciting upcoming projects were scrapped, in part because the people who were necessary to accomplish those projects are gone.

The concept of technical managers who also write code is gone. Managers who deeply understood the technical complexity of our systems are largely gone now, having departed or been assigned other roles. Our strong independent QA team is now absorbed into development, and the managers who used to have the political clout to push back and say no to cutting corners have been reassigned or have departed the company. The general sentiment is adapt to the new way or "good luck with future endeavors" - a statement our CEO has replied with on another review here on Glassdoor that shared a similar sentiment.

I'm not arguing that the decisions of management haven't been effective - one need only look at the company's growth in size and stock price to see that it has. And certainly not all of the departures have been bad - we've had a wildly successful IPO, and some people just don't need to work anymore - a testament to how amazing Smartsheet has been.

But as a place to work now, where you will spend the majority of your waking hours, you probably want a place where you can be proud of your work, and where you can think of management as the people who help facilitate your personal career growth and success. Where you can be free to be an advocate for quality without fear that doing so will harm your prospects for career advancement. Where ideas can flow freely, and you can be free to explore new technologies and improve experiences for your customers beyond the Minimum Viable Product.

A friend recently told me "A word of advice: keep your head down." I never thought I'd hear that said about Smartsheet. What greatly saddens me is that I couldn't disagree with that sentiment.

Over the last year or so, I have seen a lot of people step up to fill the void left by the departure of several veteran team members, putting in long hours, and doing everything they could to keep things running as smoothly as possible. It is my belief that those people were not recognized or compensated for going above and beyond when the company needed them the most.

With the next annual review, a lot of people are going to have switched managers again - I encourage you to err on the side of your employees when you don't have enough performance data.

There's been so much attrition of valuable team members, and it doesn't need to be this way. This much churn from long-time employees is harming the experience for our customers, and making it hard for those of us that choose to stay to hold our heads up high.