Thumbtack

I have been at Thumbtack for less than 1 year (similar to many other TT-ers). I have never been to the office, but I hear there was an amazing culture pre-Covid. The company is pretty spread out already with teams in SF, Salt Lake City, Toronto, and the Philippines.

Based on hiring since Covid started, I would be surprised to see a strong move to have everyone back in an office post-Covid. Though, I do think that there will still be a majority of employees working a reasonable amount of time in an office, with exceptions for roles that can largely be done remotely (engineering comes to mind). There have been leadership role hires outside the Bay, which seems to have been rare (non-existent) pre-Covid.

This year was a rollercoaster for the company, but luckily things seem to be looking good going into the end of the year. People are optimistic about the future, and there are a lot of new, strong ICs and Leaders that joined to help continue the current momentum into the new year and beyond.

Pros:

• Overall, the people at Thumbtack are smart and kind.
• The people team really does try to create an awesome culture (even while working remotely).
• Leadership at the highest levels seems aligned and focused, with clear goals in mind.
• There is a lot of freedom to try things and experiment, as well as own your area of the product.
• TT Bucks, Internet, Phone Reimbursement, Good comp.
• Remote events show that the people at TT also have skills outside of work (singers, poets, chefs, athletes, overall musicians - people are crazy talented).
• The work on my team is interesting, the problems are hard, and the data are actually quite clean (not the dumpster fire of most companies) - so the opportunities are large.

Cons:

• There are a lot of new people, and (like a lot of other startups) also reasonably high attrition, which can make it hard to move in an aligned direction and know where everything is to help move together. Some TT-ers seem to still be holding hard feelings from layoffs earlier this year.
• There are a lot of things that aren't figured out or haven't been built that you might expect a company that has been around for 12 years to have already figured out. Why this is the case could be related to attrition. There is a lot of poaching of TT talent, but I am truly not sure. It could be that the problems are hard. Yes, they are, but I don't totally buy that.
• Note: Many of these projects seem to be on the roadmap, but from my observation, short-term wins often seem to take priority over these lengthy investments. In the remote world, my view isn't super far into what other teams are working on.
• I have been here almost a year and have not once had a talk about growth or a performance review from my manager. Potentially folks being overlooked due to not having these conversations also leads to attrition.
• No 401k match