All looks, no substance - Recensione dipendente - Dipendente anonimo presso Lightspeed

- Inexperienced / under-qualified management - Low salary when benchmarked against what similar tech companies pay - Lack of career growth opportunities - Misalignment between company mission (customer-focused) and internal culture (sell at all costs). -- ***This review is based exclusively on opinions I formed while working at Lightspeed. My opinion is subjective. I encourage you to do your own due diligence and form your own opinions*** When you meet a person with tons of potential that they don’t live up to, what do you call them? A disappointment. I think Lightspeed has all the potential in the world, but overall, the sum of all parts is disappointing. People are drawn to Lightspeed because from the outside, everything looks awesome. But it’s all window-dressing to distract you from the issues that make it an undesirable place to build your career (I believe the average tenure across all departments is around 2 years. You can draw your own conclusions from that). 1. In my opinion, Lightspeed is plagued by underwhelming management at all levels. There are some great managers in this company, but they are few and far between and usually don’t stay very long. Many lack the fundamental skills and knowledge to effectively lead their teams and seemingly resort to playing political games to keep their jobs. It’s imposter syndrome on steroids. They spend their days in overcrowded meetings, making plans, spreadsheets, and presentations to convince one another of their legitimacy, but nothing ever ends up getting done and when it does, the results are often underwhelming. You have to wonder if it’s because they just don’t have the experience or necessary competencies to pinpoint what’s causing the challenges they’re facing rather than booking 5+ meetings to “sync” and discuss how to deal with the symptoms. 2. Overall, teams are relatively junior. This could be part of their hiring strategy (hire them young, cheap, and naive), but in my opinion it’s a result of under-qualified, inexperienced managers making poor hiring decisions. The overall result is teams with little experience in their fields or concentrations. Tons of mistakes get made because they move fast and can’t anticipate future risks until it’s too late. This, compounded over time, means there are a lot of (technical and cultural) problems that are not easy to fix. 3. You’re hired to do a very specific job. Once you want to take on more, you’ll realize that Lightspeed has a reactive approach to career development. They don’t have a plan for you and they likely never did. At best, they’ll offer you a fancier title (i.e: “manager” but without any direct reports, or with little to no changes to your overall responsibilities) and a marginally better salary (but still well below what other tech companies pay). There’s no true career growth, only superficial monikers and fancy titles with little substance. They fully expect you to get tired of your role and below-standard pay, leave, and replace you with another naive fresh-face who buys their cliché mission statement. 4. From my experience, the company-wide emphasis on delivering often unrealistic short-term results has fostered a culture of stress, anxiety, and uncertainty. Rather than do things that are beneficial for long-term, sustainable growth, you’ll see people get scrappy and do whatever it takes to hit their monthly targets. Your linear focus is, and always will be, hitting targets for that month. And nobody cares how you do it. Just do it. It’s a never-ending hamster wheel. In my experience, you are ultimately powerless to influence change in any of the four issues mentioned above. Either accept things the way they are or leave. Overall, Lightspeed talks a big game but doesn’t back it up. They over-index on superficial attributes. Don’t be impressed by the castle, the “world domination” or the youthful, tech vibe. This place only cares about its image and is plagued by systemic issues that, in my opinion, leadership seemingly refuses to address (or isn’t qualified to resolve). Rather than fix those issues, it’s easier to introduce some new shiny initiative, benefit, or event to distract everyone from acknowledging uncomfortable truths and legitimately questioning their employer. If you think this is all just normal growing pains for a high-growth company, understand that Lightspeed has been around since 2005. If those issues have lingered for 15+ years, they likely won't get fixed anytime soon. They’ve convinced themselves of their own superiority and that has made them deaf to criticism and blind to future problems they will (eventually) run into if they keep things status quo. If you’re a recent grad looking to break into the tech industry, get a few years of experience, and make some friends, Lightspeed might be for you…just be careful who you take advice and mentorship from when you’re on the inside. There are a lot of pretenders. If you’re want to learn from mature, experienced leaders, and grow your skillsets while working for a company that offers fulfilling, engaging work and doesn’t take both its customers and employees for granted, stay away.