Lithium Technologies Reviews in Emeryville, CA

Current Employee – been working at Lithium Technologies full-time for less than a year

Pros – Amazing executive staff
growing fast
passionate employees
free snacks
company culture is amazing
unique benefits such as gym & commuter reimbursements
opportunity to learn
CEO is incredibly involved and takes employees success personally
company vision
inspiring place to work and this company is going to go far

Cons – location is "eh" right now but they are moving to SF in April so that con will be solved soon

Advice to Senior Management – Keep rockin' it

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Lithium Technologies full-time for more than a year

Pros – Has emerged from unknown to a recognized player in the social CRM space.
Well funded.
Market domination in telecom communities.
Moving office to San Francisco.
Good marketing.
Fun user conference.
Work-life balance is fine.

Cons – Talent is always leaving.
Revolving door of leadership.
Product quality.
Culture and values -- ? What are they?
Long-term outlook.
No end-game. IPO is always "1-2 years out" and has been since anyone can remember.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Lithium Technologies full-time for more than a year

Pros – The business is interesting and has promise, especially with respect to the analytics and historical community performance side of things. Not sure what happened with it, but they also bought Scout, which was a cool reputation technology. There are interesting challenges and technologies to work with.

Cons – There is an insider culture at Lithium that can make it hard to get comfortable and really know folks on the engineering team. That said, there are good people there, and once you get to know them, it gets much more fun. There is quite a mish-mash of technology, and some of it has been around for a long time, so that can take adjustment and may drive some folks who love a green field crazy.

Advice to Senior Management – Make it clearer who the business owners are and connect them more directly with engineers. Foster better collaboration across teams and groups.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Lithium Technologies full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great people, great opportunities. Lithium recognizes and promotes talent. Many of the best people stay with the company long term, making for excellent long lasting work relationships. The work is interesting and challenging and there is always plenty of it (which, in this economy, isn't a bad thing). It's also a great industry to work in right now, and Lithium is positioned to really make a difference in a lot of people's lives, making it easier for our customers to interact meaningfully with their own customers.

Cons – The company sometimes "forgets" their remote staff, leaving them out of some opportunities that office staff enjoy, without finding comparable activities/rewards for them.

Salaries should be reviewed on a more regular basis.

Lithium is sometimes a little slow to identify and deal with problem staff members.

Advice to Senior Management – Fail fast should a rule used with staff. You can usually tell pretty quickly if people fit the culture and have good work ethics. If they don't, let's not wait 6 months to a year to start taking appropriate actions. Sure it's hard to hire and fire, but it's also hard for staff to work with employees who don't carry their weight for long periods of time.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Lithium Technologies full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – - Excellent life/work balance: Flexible work hours and a lot of parties.
- Paid Volunteer Time Off (VTO): I am encouraged to volunteer at any philanthropic organization of my choice during office hours and still get paid.
- Very strong sale team. Engineering leaderships are young, smart and energetic.
- Pre IPO and the market is still growing
- Lot of foods and snacks

Cons – - Complex products require the most brilliant engineers just to get them maintained.
- CEO focuses on long term success by building a multi generation company, so it is unlikely to get rich quick here.
- Huge competitions in a red hot market.

Advice to Senior Management – Please move the office to San Francisco ASAP.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Lithium Technologies full-time for more than a year

Pros – Problems you work on are interesting and varied

The organization makes a concious effort to see that you have the tools and resources to make you more productive

The company is growing and there is room to grow along with it

The line managers are all former leads and staff as opposed to MBA's

Cons – I haven't found any yet

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Lithium Technologies full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – * Great learning environment. Anyone can fairly easily move amongst teams and work with whatever they want to learn
* Friendly people. Everyone is extremely helpful. You never have to be afraid of not being able to complete your task due to being unfamiliar with the code
* Free snacks, drinks, food, whatever. Very healthy options too
* Very chill management. They are usually very cool with people working from home and are very flexible in terms of accommodating your schedule
* Near the public market, which has a lot of great food options.
* Near one of best universities, UC Berkeley.
* Easily accessible by Bart(emery-go-round), Amtrak, and easy parking.

Cons – * Too much legacy code with very little emphasis put on refactoring and improving existing code base
* Interview standards way too low. Knowing basic data structures are optional in some cases.
* Too much overhead in scrum process. (too many meaningless meetings that hinder productivity)
* Been at lithium for a long time and so far, management has been extremely un-proactive in terms of rewarding employees

Advice to Senior Management – * Stricter Interviewing. In order to attract the best, we need to have the best.
* Reward your employees more. At least according to my friends, I am being paid significantly below market.

– I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Lithium Technologies full-time for more than a year

Pros – good product, in need of upgrades
great people
good culture
excellent location for those no living in the peninsula

Cons – management is clueless
there is no vision
it is all about flashy stuff, no substance

Advice to Senior Management – get a clue about the competition, the market, and the product and set a new goal for the company. it is not about the past, it is about the future now.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Lithium Technologies

Pros – At Lithium you can see a problem, figure out a solution, and solve it. Most companies can't claim this.

Cons – Being at startup pace often the middle management pieces are dropped. Self guided careers are necessary here.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep investing in your employees and listening to them... they are right!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Lithium Technologies

Pros – Lithium has been in business for over 10 years. That means they are doing something right. You can't last through the recession if you're not delivering value to companies. That said when you're transitioning as an organization, it's never a smooth path. As far as I can tell, they are making the right and necessary steps to do this. Of course a lot of people will 'armchair quarterback' their advice for the management team, but honestly, Rob is doing a great job. This is a fun place to work, it is growing, it is successful, it can raise a lot of capital, and it has great people. It is also at the front of an industry. Most companies do not have that set of attributes.

Cons – Like all growing companies, Lithium is learning how to become bigger in a way that lets them retain some of the personality that has made them a great place to work. We are space constrained, but that is changing this year. We do need to work on how people are developed, that is tricky at small companies but they are making steps in that direction.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend