Pros
- Engoo has stable payments, you never have to worry about being paid. - There is a stable influx of students for 3 hours in the morning and 3 hours in the evening (japan time). - You have a window of time between classes which you can use to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water. Disclaimer: I have worked for Engoo for nearly 2 years.
Cons
- Pay is very low. $5 per lesson for native teachers (25 mins - 2 lessons per hour), and maybe lower I believe for non-native teachers. I'm not sure. The standard currently is about $20 an hour for most similar companies. - From the student backend, how you find teachers is based on ranking. So page 1 is best ranked teachers, page 10 is lower ranked, etc. So if 1 student gives you a bad ranking, you are moved further back in the pages and it becomes harder to get new students. I had a score of 4.95 out of 5 (out of 2000+ reviews) and was having no problems filling classes due to being close or on the first page. Upon getting 1 bad comment recently my score dropped to 4.87/5 stars and I have been unable to get classes filled properly for a week due to being pushed back past the 8th page. A teacher with only 1 review that is 5 stars would be higher on the search results than you who have been working there for an extended time with more reviews, but 1 or 2 of them being bad ones. To get a few bad reviews is totally natural as some students just don't like you and will leave a bad review based off that, as that is normal human behaviour to not get along with everyone. It is very odd that the system is not by default randomised so that students are constantly seeing new teachers, so it looks like you have more choice. With an option to filter by ranking if you choose. The issue with this is that as a worker it makes your job way too sporatic. You go from "busy and totally filled" to "practically no students" overnight. It's too impractical for a stable job, and other platforms do it far better. - They have a lot of very weird specific rules that you can get fired for (if you receive enough warnings). Ie, if they want to fire you because they don't like you, they can. Rules such as you can only drink water out of a clear glass. You cannot drink coffee out of a plain white cup, as an example. This is a firable offence to drink out of something like a plain white cup. There is a long list of absurd rules like this. - There is no company feedback channels besides talking to normal support. So if you feel you have an issue with the company that you think higher ups should know about (ie, a problem with a support employee, some issue with your contract that you want to put feedback in about, an opinion about a change the company has made recently that you don't like, etc) there is no chain of command to give feedback or make a complaint. - There is no way to stop an abusive student from rebooking you unlike other platforms. You have an option to cancel their class but you have to pay a monetary penalty for each class you cancel, and if you cancel too many classes you are given a warning and can be fired from this if the situation pursits (2% cancelations is fine, 4% isn't recommended but fine, if you go over 4% they give you a warning). This can be an issue when a student keeps booking classes over and over and doesn't take the hint. This can easily tip you into the area which can lead to you being fired. The issue is that you are teaching both adults and children. If you are a female teacher, you may get male students whom want to see you and make you feel uncomfortable. This is totally natural, and most companies have instituted easy ways for the teacher to block a student after a class has ended if the teacher feels uncomfortable. This would just remove the teacher from the student's search results and stop the issue from occuring. Engoo right now only does it when there is incitement of violence or severe harassment. A student being creepy would not satisfy. I know this because it happened to me. I canceled approximately 17 lessons from a student and tried to contact support, who told me they couldn't help at all. Any issue that I have had with support that is more technical like this, seems to be a problem, specifically because there is no feedback channel to any other higher management. In my case the issue was not that the student was being creepy, it was that he wanted me to be a typist to his oration rather than an English teacher which I found rediculous. I stuck with it for a while but eventually couldn't handle it. It was very frustrating when Engoo had absolutely no means for me to control my freelance contract classes like every other platform. You are hired as a contractor is the point here, therefore you should by law be allowed to choose whom books you or not. Rather than the company, as you are not an employee by law. Personal contractors by law choose their clients (contract for service, rather than a contract of service). Summary: All round Engoo is a nice stable place to work. The mostly all-Japanese students are all round nice people and I have had some great interactions over my time there. Though I would say that there are better companies in terms of pay. Though its great if your looking for a stable way to get a bit of extra cash.