Even spikes highly on: culture, mission & growth opportunities. - Advisor Even Employee Review

5.0
17 Jan 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Summarizing my time at Even into pros and cons won't entirely do the experience justice but I'll try to keep this focused: 1) People & culture. I was an early employee so when I refer to the "team" I mean the whole company, which was ~10-15 people during my tenure. I was lucky to spend a decent amount of time with the founders and other early employees, and got to know everyone really well. A few things stood out as rare: -- Everyone was really supportive of each other. There was an incredibly high value placed on performance, in terms of output and quality of work - but I never doubted that everyone also cared about each other's well-being. I relocated from the east coast to join Even, and was encouraged (not just permitted) to take frequent trips back home to ease the transition. There was a high degree of trust and maturity within the team which meant flexible work styles/schedules. This kept everyone honest and allowed us to focus on solving the problems that matter. -- Similarly, the team spiked really highly on humility. Despite the gravity of the mission, the demands of the work and the abundance of talent/intellect in the room, everyone remained grounded and maintained their sense of humor. I can't recall an instance when someone on the team wasn't willing to help me out, or make time to answer questions/share knowledge. 2) Mission/values. Even is one of those companies whose employees really live the values. Without question, everyone matched the expectations I had about commitment to the mission. Never a hint of politics, just pure focus on the work and what's best for the end user. Decisions were driven by real dedication to understanding the end user's perspective - through field research, data, and extensive team discussions. 3) Growth opportunities. As the founding member of my team (the Advisors) I had near-complete autonomy over my work. My focus and scope shifted quite often - not erratically, but in the sense that early stage startups evolve quickly and so do roles/priorities. There's never a shortage of hats to be worn. I was trusted to contribute to various projects outside of my comfort zone, which means I learned a ton very quickly - both soft skills and hard skills. I could probably fill an entire page on my resume. Even is generous with learning & development budgets for employees, and in my experience this benefitted team members with lots of self-direction HUGELY. Outside of my own trajectory, I watched each of the Advisors level-up their own skillsets in some way or another.

Cons

1) Work/life balance never ceased to be a challenge. Ultimately I felt like I was approaching burnout and didn't see any opportunities to reverse it. This may be different now, but the reality is that being "on-call" 24/7 is par for the course at early stage startups. I will say that considering how early I joined, I knew what I was signing up for - and the team was super honest about this with me even during the interview phase.

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5.0
16 Jul 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
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Pros

Employee focused Transparent Mission driven

Cons

Small Limited resources Acquired through another company

4.0
28 Mar 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Had strong alignment with values and cared a lot about hiring people who cared about those values deeply

Cons

started making hires in sales and marketing that ignored or didn't do values interviews at all

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