Forma Reviews

This is the only job I’ve ever had where I made less money the longer I stayed. Everything that appealed to me during the interview process (generous monthly bonuses, flexible work hours, unlimited PTO, employer-paid health insurance, opportunities for growth, in-person events, no micromanagement, fun company culture, reasonable workload expectations, etc) was one by one stripped away. Toward the end, it had morphed into grueling, isolating work with a bunch of “coworkers” I had never spoken to, a patronizing boss, and ever-dwindling benefits. Job training was nonexistent (at least on my team). We were publicly chewed out or shamed for asking simple questions about how to do our jobs. We were even told that we had to "earn" more job training by first hitting our KPIs. In what world does that make sense? We were told not to DM our teammates and told not to reach out to HR if we had a problem (they were “too busy” according to our manager). New features were launched with no QA, testing, or preparation for frontline teams. Then, when those frontline teams were drowning under a tsunami of customer backlash, instead of being supported, they were blamed and told they weren’t doing their jobs and needed to work harder. Just ask anyone who was there in January of 2023. Leadership would make thinly veiled attempts to cut costs but then fabricate some other reason for their decisions. As if a complete re-org and subsequent layoffs were unrelated to recent customer churn. I felt constantly disrespected during my time at Forma and am honestly relieved to have escaped such a toxic work environment.

Leadership doesn't trust the team to make decisions. You will be told to define strategic vision, but will be given no autonomy to implement. Your work and input will be disregarded. If and when they do finally start to act on your input, you will be gaslit into thinking that you should be grateful that it's finally happening, even if months or years late. Team has had a LOT of churn in the past year - RIF on product team removed research and content from the design team, most of the design team is now gone, as well as multiple high-level engineers and engineering managers. No company culture to speak of; they expect you to plan your own events if you happen to live near others (with little to no budget). Otherwise, good luck building camaraderie and feeling connected.