Lithium Technologies Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Lithium Technologies full-time

Pros – Absolutely great team of people. Smart, energized and motivated to get the job done and do well. Some of the best sales leaders I have ever worked with. Lots of opportunity to make good money and win big name accounts. You get the support you need to be successful. Sales leaders respect you and give you the freedom to be a professional. No micro-managing, only advice and help.

Cons – Lots of competition in the space so sales isn't easy but Lithium engages the full executive team when you need to them to help.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep the open communication style and stay involved in the deals and customers.

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

Pros – * great demand for Lithium community in social customer space
* no real competitors
* you don't have to work hard to be successful in this company as long as you are in a good relationship with the management

Cons – * processes for processes sake. HR runs this company.
* lack of real competition is good for sales but it also means there is no interesting work to do, because customers don't have anything to compare Lithium to. And Lithium doesn't innovate unless told to do so by its customers.
* hours are not flexible at all. Enormous amount of meetings/number of managers in the company means engineers have to be in the office at all times. And at Lithium meetings/managers' satisfaction is way more important than real work.
* Weak middle management is causing real damage by interrupting cross team communication and communication between the team and higher management. Poor management also causes employees demotivation/talent departure.
* Engineering salaries are way below average.
* Last but not the least, Lithium became this only after the era of Rob Tarkoff had begun. It could be the way any pre-IPO company has to operate to be successful. But I would strongly discourage anyone with start up background from joining this company because you are not going to be happy here by definition.

Advice to Senior Management – looks like the management is happy, so not sure they need my advice.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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 a year

Pros – Great management, very pleasant co workers, hardworking and dedicated people, good vision, growth opportunity, good machines

Cons – No catered meals is all I can think of

Advice to Senior Management – Keep it up and never forget your people

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 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