Toxic culture hidden behind fake five-star reviews - Product Designer Elfie Employee Review

1.0
29 Oct 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Talented and hardworking team members - Interesting projects across health and wellness domains. - Opportunity to work on multiple features and product development end-to-end

Cons

- Top-down culture where feedback is ignored. Managers often change direction without clear reasoning, creating confusion and wasted effort. This kills motivation and trust. - Toxic politics and backtalk behind people’s backs. Respect and transparency are missing. - Leaders often redo work themselves instead of trusting their teams, leaving little sense of ownership or motivation. - Salary reviews are unstructured and unfair — performance isn’t recognized, and raises feel arbitrary. - The feedback culture is unhealthy. People are afraid to speak up because it’s punished and rarely leads to change. - The company’s Glassdoor rating doesn’t reflect reality — it was around 2 stars couple months ago, but now shows almost 5, likely due to fake or pressured reviews. - Overall, it’s a draining environment that stifles creativity and proactiveness.

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Elfie Response
6mo
Thank you for your feedback. The issues you described were addressed two months ago when we removed several former product team members and HR staff whose lack of business acumen, user focus, and communication skills had affected product quality and team morale. Since then, feedback across all teams has been strongly positive (hence the reviews). We regret not making these changes earlier and are sorry this impacted your experience. Thank you for your contribution, and we wish you the best moving forward.

Explore other reviews about Elfie

3.0
5 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

High-Impact Mission: You would be building a platform that directly improves the lives of patients with chronic diseases through a free, gamified app. Massive Scalability: The company is growing rapidly, moving from 7 countries to a goal of 25 by the end of 2025, offering a chance to solve global-scale engineering problems.

Cons

Fast-Paced "Startup Culture": The environment is described as fast-moving, requiring a "roll up your sleeves" attitude and a strong "bias for action," which can lead to high pressure and long hours. Regulatory Complexity: Working in healthcare means dealing with strict ethical and regulatory guidelines, which adds significant complexity to backend development and data handling.

4.0
22 Jan 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

This company is an excellent place for anyone looking to sharpen their technical and soft skills. You get hands-on experience solving real-world user problems and tackling highly challenging tasks. I personally grew a lot in terms of learning to work independently, communicating efficiently across teams, and adopting a user-centric mindset. If you want to see how features are built from the ground up, the learning curve here is rewarding.

Cons

The environment is high-pressure and can feel overwhelming. Requirements and deadlines change frequently, often with multiple features moving fast simultaneously, which makes long-term planning difficult. Additionally, the management style from leadership can feel exclusionary or "toxic" at times. It is a "sink or swim" environment; if you aren't immediately up to speed, the pressure from all directions becomes unsustainable.

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