Lithium Technologies Reviews

Pros

1. On path to be GREAT now that Rob Tarkoff came from Adobe as CEO
2. Very hot market and Lithium has much potential to own market
3. Rob Tarkoff bringing 1st class top professionals to the company
3. Customers are the best and biggest companies
4. Cool product
5. No dress code

Cons

1. Some old management not up to standard
2. Second rate marketing does not help us sell
3. Most VP managers are mediocre. Open secret but no one fixes it.
3. Some departments very political but many are not
4. Terrible office space. Bad commute and neighborhood
5. Managers that have been there longer are small company type but think they are the best.
6. Benefits only average.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep hiring the best. Help the mediocre management that has been there too long to leave. Don't be afraid to ignore politics and clean house. If you ignore smoke screens that some top management uses to protect their reports it is easy to identify people who should not be managers.

Pros

Some of the long-timers call this company today the "new Lithium". I can't agree more. Since the new CEO joined the company, we've seen a dramatic improvement across the board. There is a renewed sense of purpose, much better understanding of a tremendous opportunity in front of us and great team work. The new additions to the executive team are creating much better transparency and crisp decision making.

But for me the biggest strength of Lithium is its maniacal focus on its customers. I worked for several very cool companies but never experienced such passion and dedication to making customers successful. We even have a wall of *real* customer faces in our office lobby to constantly remind staff that we're responsible for these people's success, careers, etc.

Cons

There is no sugarcoating here, our office space and location suck. With all the new hires, it is starting to get crammed, there is a constant shortage of conference rooms. While Emeryville is in a nicer part of East Bay, attracting technical talent to East Bay is difficult and commute is ugly for many of us. Access to public transportation and good restaurants is not great either. There is a talk about us moving to San Francisco this year. If true, it will be a very welcome move for the company

Advice to Senior Management

You are on the right track, please keep the momentum going! I also strongly feel that moving us to a cool office in San Francisco will do wonders for our culture and ability to recruit top technical talent

Pros

* PASSION. Passion for success, passion for customer success, passion for cool technologies, passion for high standard code, passion for out of work activities, you name it.
* COLLABORATION. In every company and in every project there are problems, delays, forgotten requirements, priorities changes etc but everything is solvable with this kind of cross team collaboration.
* CHALLENGES. Plenty opportunities to solve complex problems.

Cons

There could be more constructive feedback from the management. Currently mostly positive feedback is provided explicitly.
Code reviews are optional.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up a good work
More informal communication could be helpful

Pros

Great work environment---highly collaborative, very relaxed, but with an intense focus on customers and delivering quality software. Great energy around what we're doing for our customers.

Cons

We're running out of office space. We are planning a move in the next six months. I am looking forward to our office move, which may be in San Francisco or Oakland. I live in San Francisco and could shorten my commute a bit if we moved there.

Advice to Senior Management

We have a new CEO, Rob Tarkfoff, who is doing a great job (employees really like his style, energy, focus). My advice would be to keep up all of the communication programs (monthly and quarterly meetings, emails, etc.) to keep employees informed.

Pros

* Great benefits
* Flexible schedule
* Good work/life balance
* Brilliant, dedicated, hilarious, creative, driven coworkers
* Fun events, happy hours, parties, meetings
* Awesome atmosphere if you are in office - video games, TV & couch, ping pong tables, copious amounts of coffee, soda and beer available.

Cons

Due to the massive growth of this company - policies and procedures are not yet clearly implemented and documented. Could use more team collaboration between different departments as well.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay more attention to the little guys behind the scenes much like you do the sales & marketing teams.

Pros

It is true that I feel lucky to work here. I believe that we help people help other people. That's really inspiring to me.

Cons

It would be nice if we were located at SF.

Advice to Senior Management

I love our Town Hall meetings - thanks for continuing to make those richer.

Pros

Culture of success, dedication, and cooperation.
Incredible products and use of technology
Great people who are are warm and live out the Lithium culture
Very optimistic about the market we are in

Cons

This field is mandatory but I'm stretching to come up with negatives. The current location is a bit bad (Emeryville).

Advice to Senior Management

Keep going with our current direction. In particular, hires and promotions in the Executive team have been very strong in the last year.

Pros

I came to Lithium early in 2011 because I recognized them as a top company in a hot space. With a SaaS offering focused on solving complex problems related to social support, commerce, and awareness, I felt Lithium was the right place for the next phase of my career.

The experience has exceeded my expectations. As an individual contributor I was provided ample support to come up to speed quickly, leading to great sales results. I believe we have the best product in this space and a great team to support our success. Lithium has strong marketing leadership, excellent pre-sales support, and differentiated post-sales support/consulting offerings that make it easy to sell and then provide quantifiable success for our customers.

I was especially impressed with the leadership and culture here. The founders of the company are true visionaries who have set a work hard, play hard standard that makes it fun to be a part of. With the addition of Rob Tarkoff as the new CEO we are poised to take the company to the next level and I'm excited to be a part of it.

Cons

Growing Pains.
1. The office is crowded (and in Emeryville). I hope that the planned move to SF happens quickly
2. Product Group has a full plate and are hiring to keep up with the need to align product with company vision as well as customer-requested enhancements
3. Base pay for sales is slighly low. They do make up for it on the variable, with OTE being at the top end of companies I have worked for

Advice to Senior Management

Continue bringing in top talent that are commited to the success of the company and our customers.
Grow the company aggressively, but pragmatically.
Find a way to maintain the fun aspects of Lithium as we cross the chasm and become a large company

Pros

New CEO (Rob Tarkoff) is making changes - and for the better. He has brought a vision of renewed focus, opportunity, and a coolness factor to what we do. I am more excited to work at Lithium now. The pros are the people I work with, the work I do, and the possibilities for the future. This isn't a sleeply little company anymore.

Cons

The office (Emeryville) is too crowded. Conference rooms are in high demand and low supply. The commute is tough for a lot of us. We need to move soon.

Advice to Senior Management

Just continue to communicate openly, continue to ask and listen to employees, and continue to make it better for all of us. It's early in Tarkoff's reign, but so far, very good.

Less cereal and more fresh fruit.

Pros

Lithium is making a strong and visible investment in their leadership and employees and setting a strong vision for the future. We are adding new teams of people to help fuel the growth.

There company has been recognized as a leader in the business social media space and has strong analyst recognition via Gartner and Forrester. It is a hot space, Social Media on SaaS platform.

There seems to be a new buzz and excitement in the company as the bar is being raised, The coworkers are dedicated, collaborative and strongly committed to making the company even more successful.

Cons

Quickly outgrowing its current space and additional facilities will be needed soon.

The location in Emeryville can make it a commute challenge. Great for folks in the east bay, not bad from SF, but can be tough from the south bay. But fortunately close to freeway, trains and BART.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep communication open and transparent. Share the vision and the successes. Continue to invest in the employees.

Fast growth is exciting, but be sure to provide ongoing training and development for staff. This is a time a dramatic change and communication is key. Be sure the newly hired employees are assimilated into the company well and made to feel part of the culture.