Vantaggi
Branch is an early-stage/scale-up technology company. If you enjoy that sort of environment, then you'll agree having greater agility, freedom from procedural constraints, a new challenge every day, success punctuated by intermittent and fleeting failure, a permanent sense of urgency and a heavy workload are 'pros'. If you don't agree, why are are you working here? If you prefer to wrap yourself in a corporate duvet, Adobe and Salesforce and Oracle and Microsoft all have jobs advertised. I've worked for the fledgling EMEA arm of 5 US software companies. A couple went on to become very successful enterprises. The best compliment I can pay Branch is that the longer I'm here, the more it reminds me of those previous successes. Nothing is guaranteed, of course. Having great product and even better people is never enough: you need luck, market readiness and a bit more luck. All you can do is give yourself the best chance you can, and that is what Branch is doing. - Compensation is slightly above scale-up market average - Feedback is encouraged to the point it is almost demanded with regular employee engagement surveys - Product value prop is strong with no competitive equal - Potential to revolutionise the industry and make Branch a household name for decades to come - New skillsets and knowledge expansion are unavoidable - Hugely approachable execs and senior leadership - No egos. I mean none - Even less politics. Try that at Branch and you're toast within weeks - A *real* commitment to diversity and inclusion. Not just lip-service I lead a team of 5 Customer Success Managers split between Berlin and London who are as good at what they do as any CSM I've managed previously. None has left, which means the previous review by a 'former London Customer Success Manager' is fake. No such profile exists. Oh, and the corporate swag is top-notch.
Svantaggi
Branch is an early-stage/scale-up technology. If you've ever worked at such a company, you'll immediately know what that means. And if you've been lucky enough to work at a successful early-stage/scale-up, you'll know that challenges in such environments can be significant. Branch is no different. But there is nothing I've seen at Branch that I didn't see previously at companies that enjoyed hugely successful outcomes. It comes with the territory: you're building the plane and flying it at the same time. It's not for everybody, but last time I checked there were no locked doors or bars on the window. The workload can be significant at times. Shocking, right? Who would have thought that a company of 100 people that doubles in size two consecutive years might be busy? Does that mean there is nothing that could be changed? Of course not. Greater autonomy for the regions, a firmer commitment to succeeding big or failing big, a tad less micro-management...if you can't find ANYTHING you'd like to change about your current employer, you're probably not looking hard enough. As with just about every tech organisation this spring/summer, Branch did have to make some workforce cuts. I don't expect former-employees to be well-disposed to Branch given such a move, but neither do I expect them to lie about us. It's remarkable that people should be so ticked off about losing a job that - given the content of their transparently partial reviews - they clearly hated. Bizarre.