Atom Learning reviews

1. Management thinks that they’re smarter than anyone else- The management in Atom loves to hire someone with more experience and then, later on, realises that they are not a yes man, pushing back on ideas and firing them very quickly. 2. Cold-blooded founder- I worked under one of the founders, Alex. Working under Alex was a blessing as he showed me what it might be like working for a robot. The word compassion doesn’t exist in his dictionary. He also loved to play favouritism. 3. Toxic corporate culture- The management team worships the Netflix value. The company is dysfunctional, and the founders can just do what they want. They don’t care about cross-team collaboration. They would not provide guidance or training and would expect you to deliver immediately.

The reviews that say 'startups are not for everyone' are really just disguising that this is a three year company that still does not have any formal career progression for employees, so it is impossible to know how to progress. They do not have an HR department, so it's unclear how you can express these frustrations other than to your direct manager, who has no power over promotions or salary. This is because senior leadership do not know how to delegate responsibility to people they hire, despite those people being incredible at what they do. The complete lack of progression is evident in that qualified people are only advanced when others are fired - if that, as they'll also just hire people in to senior roles. Benefits and salary are not competitive, although SLT say they are 'market rate' - when you try to show research showing other roles with similar profiles with higher salaries, they ignore you. Of the people I know who left, they all received around a 10-20% increase just on their starting salaries, which SLT are aware of, so it continues to stun me they're willing to just lose talented people by not increasing salaries to what the market actually pays. The pension scheme is low, and there is no real medical or wellness benefit, again there are other startups/smaller tech companies that have better benefits. There is a definite culture of fear, because while there is the chance to take ownership of projects, the targets set are unrealistic and people are let go with no warning. Everyone ends up doing work outside their role because they're continually pressuring people to perform more than is possible in a normal working day - I regularly worked late nights to hit targets. The reviews that say 'cultures of freedom and responsibility aren't for everyone' are so misleading because people are happy to take on responsibility but are then punished when the SLT decide to prioritise something else. Overall, the senior leadership don't respect their team enough to provide progression, competitive salary or benefits, and ultimately don't seem to care when they lose good people. Atom can't continue to grow while it is so mismanaged and dysfunctional internally.