Never again. Red flags all around. Do not join this company if you care about your career. - Software Engineer Zello Employee Review

1.0
5 Mar 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good mission (however executed extremely poorly if not dubiously)

Cons

Company champions a “hire and fire” policy, and given the strong cultural issues and lack of desire to change it I don’t see it changing anytime soon. Most employees leave within a year. - The company glorifies extremely long hours, you will end up working late nights and weekends. Taking PTO for more than a week will raise red flags across the org with managers subtly hinting at avoiding folks to do so. - Roles are advertised as a “hybrid” but in reality you’d be expected to be in to the office from 9 to 9 on 4/5 days. - Much of the leadership and middle management has low EQ, and no desire to change even with retention issues. Management views employees as objects not people. No company is perfect here, but most experiences with the team here have been exceptionally bad. Glassdoor reviews are true and confirm this. - Extremely dubious “tech company”, where almost every tech aspect of the business is outsourced offshore. It operates a consulting business - No autonomy granted in roles. Decision making is extremely opaque and top down with priorities changing week over week. Middle management is encouraged to micromanage. This is evidenced by strong attrition and extremely short tenures of folks (even at exec levels) at the company. - No desire to invest in technology tools to help simplify work processes - resulting in extremely mind numbing and unchallenging work.

Explore other reviews about Zello

5.0
5 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great people, interesting work, fun events, good benefits

Cons

Start-up life and long days working at a quick pace isn't for everyone

1.0
20 Jan 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Some talented individuals in the ranks, but they often leave. Flexible work arrangements sometimes, but morale makes this irrelevant. Product has potential, but leadership hampers progress. Good paternity leave - 4 weeks time off. Offsite Hackathons every year.

Cons

Chronic layoffs. Despite being over a decade old, Zello still operates like a shaky startup with no clear direction. Layoffs are frequent, with false reassurances from leadership after every round. Minimal equity. Offers little in terms of equity, and the refreshing program introduced last year is negligible and feels like an afterthought. They will tell you that this is how all start ups work. Poor leadership. The executive team lacks a clear strategy and micromanages daily operations across engineering, product, and sales, creating bottlenecks and inefficiencies. CEO tells to developers and product how to write the code (mostly in a hacky way). CTO constantly micromanages daily. Toxic work environment. Long-term employees seem resistant to change and actively undermine new hires, making it impossible to create meaningful impact. Hacky solutions. Pressure to deliver quickly leads to buggy products and endless cycles of patching and rework. Lack of vision. No clear strategy for the company’s future, just reactive measures and hollow promises.

8
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