AirApps reviews about "transparency"

The company has moved away from the modern, flexible culture that once made it so appealing. Remote work, schedule adaptability, and the ability to work from different locations are no longer supported, despite still being highlighted publicly. The shift to a strict office-only, 9–18h model has significantly reduced work–life balance and contributed to a tense and claustrophobic office atmosphere. You feel constantly observed, which makes it harder to speak openly or comfortably share concerns, even with colleagues. The PTO policy, while promoted as flexible, includes several restrictions and an informal “suggested limit,” which undermines its purpose. Decision-making feels highly centralized, which creates bottlenecks and raises concerns about scalability. Some individuals in higher positions are closely connected to leadership (family members), which can contribute to the sense of tension and limit how openly people feel they can speak up. It also doesn’t help morale that employees sometimes disappear from internal channels overnight without any communication or context, which increases overall distrust and insecurity within the team. Recent policy changes have been introduced with little transparency and limited openness to feedback, making them feel more like mechanisms of control than efforts to improve collaboration or communication. These shifts have noticeably affected engagement, and even team-building initiatives that were once appreciated now seem to generate less enthusiasm.

None of the pros are worth it. This place does a great job of selling the company to outsiders, but don't ignore the red flags and other reviews here. I'm only writing this for applicants to beware and save their mental health, because we all know management reads these and does nothing about them, simply dismissing any criticism, as always. Air Apps does some bizarre things, like hiring people for remote contract roles, only to ask them to be in-office every day one month later. A lot of people have been getting the "be in-office or quit" ultimatum. They just expect you to move to another city and country just like that. Decisions are made based on whims from the CEO and his opinions. No plan is followed through. You will be getting unfair metrics and KPIs. The company used to be great and everyone was remote, and it worked perfectly well. Then, with zero transparency, things just shifted to in-office (Lisbon or SF). The remote workers started getting fired, people were quitting every week, and most of the time we didn't even get a warning that they left. I lost count of how many times I went to send a message to someone on Slack only to find their account deactivated. They simply have no respect or transparency at any point. You don't matter in this company. A lot of contracts have some very suspicious clauses, some even bordering on illegal in some countries. You will not be appreciated for the effort you put in, and when you quit or get fired they will do it with the least amount of respect possible. The CEO's family all works there, basically: his dad is always in the office, his sister and her family are all hired—it's serious nepotism. Managers and Leads have no power or voice at all. Agree with the CEO or leave, that's it.

The company strongly promoted remote work, then abruptly shifted to hybrid, and eventually to fully on-site work. While a change in strategy is legitimate, the transition was handled with very low transparency and no meaningful communication. The office culture is heavily control-oriented. Office management is handled by the CEO’s close family (sister and parents), which creates an environment where employees often feel monitored and observed rather than trusted. This makes it difficult to feel psychologically safe at work. There is no real strategic thinking. Most decisions are pure execution of ideas coming directly from the CEO or from ChatGPT outputs, regardless of domain expertise. Even with significant experience in a specific area, final decisions are consistently made by people without that expertise. Ownership is essentially non-existent. Initiating new projects, improving processes, or proposing new ideas is not encouraged and, in practice, not possible. Professional growth is not supported. There is no real investment in training or learning. The culture is focused on constant execution and firefighting, leaving no room to learn, experiment, or implement new approaches. The performance coach role, despite being filled by a highly capable professional, had no real power to drive change. Her responsibility was to keep people motivated and emotionally supported, but she had no authority to alter processes, influence decisions, or introduce meaningful improvements. This pattern applied to many other roles as well. HR lacks vision and autonomy. The function is purely operational and defensive, clearly prioritizing company protection over employee well-being or development. The operations manager is overly focused on micro-control, such as tracking how long employees spend in the kitchen, having coffee, or using their phones, instead of focusing on actual operational improvements or enabling teams to perform better.

Lack of processes, excessive micromanagement, lack of transparency, poor and unreliable planning – all these factors make working at this company quite stressful and frustrating. Over time, it's common to see many people staying solely for the salary but with little motivation towards the company's objectives. I wouldn't recommend it to people who value quality and good health.

Too many to mention but the forced return to office resulted in the company threatening lawsuits to staff and isolating others from their colleagues. Shocking levels of micromanagement to the point where nothing is achieved.

Lot of conflict of interest. Family in HR department, so your complaints fall on deaf ears. No psychological safety. Serious micromanagement and constant pivoting. No transparency.