Inefficient and Inconsistent Work Culture - Operations Associate Upstart Employee Review

1.0
23 Oct 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Friendly employees, everyone does their part, good entry level experience.

Cons

Lack of transparency and extremely poor communication from top down when conflict arises. Current company methods used are extremely inefficient. Claims to be open to feedback, but doesn't actually take any of it in. Half the company is Operations with very clear divide from other departments. Quality of Operations is low. Managers are great, but often not around and only attend to high level needs. As a result, other senior members lead, but distinction of who is in charge is unclear and ends in power-tripping. Culture is very relaxed, but inconsistent and no explicit rules. Appears as fun at first, but judgement is made on a per-person basis and not results. Also extremely low pay for what they expect out of you. No real growth opportunity.

Explore other reviews about Upstart

5.0
11 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Promising product, competitive pay, lots of work

Cons

Unstable, leadership is hit or miss

2.0
10 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Compensation. Only reason I don't give them 1 star. - Remote Work - Pretty diverse

Cons

- incredible amount of politics, process, and red tape for an engineering org on the smaller side - Chaos. There were three re-orgs between Fall 2025 and Spring 2026. Actual madness. - High turnover is embraced. They will gladly let go of long time high performers with years of tribal knowledge and hire someone new with more experience. You eventually up with a team where everyone has hardly any domain knowledge. - Fear driven environment. You will hear performance mentioned every week in company comms and how they want everyone to be X% more productive with AI. - Speaking of AI usage, they take it to the next level. Slack messages, Jira tickets, code, design documents. All made with AI. It will be the most overly verbose word slop you can think of and you'll get a pat on the back for being so thorough. My manager seriously told me how she just copied a technical design doc into chatgpt and read that. Wild. - Cutthroat. With the new focus on productivity gains and measuring performance with PR volume, LOC, and token usage, people hardly review PRs anymore because it gets them nothing. Be prepared to spend lots of time begging your team and other teams for reviews and then waiting. Unless you are good at playing politics and have the time / energy for it, I would avoid this place at all costs. If you are just looking for something short term that pays well and encourages you to use AI for any and everything, this place works well, just don't expect to stick around for long as you're considered a veteran at 2 years with all the turnover they have. I'm glad I left for something else when I did because I see on linkedin they've had more layoffs since.

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