Good to GROSS! - Anonymous Medium Employee Review

1.0
May 11, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Most people are kind, thoughtful, genuine, and work well with others.

Cons

A lot of the people who made the company and culture great have left. Management actively fires high performing individuals with the excuse of "poor performance" and denies that it's actually because of retaliation. Medium had internally and externally promoted a culture of being "caring", "mindful", and "inclusive", which attracted a lot of employees who valued these things as well. People were asked for feedback because the company wanted to improve and "continuously improve". Because the employees believed in the organization's stated values and trusted that leadership did as well, people asked questions and started talking about the discrimination and inequities that were happening in our work place. Immediately, management started cleaning house. They fired peopled across the org (Design, Editorial, Engineering, Art, Marketing, etc.). They targeted those who had asked questions during meetings, and those who tried to make it a better work place by organizing a union. The reason that management gave for suddenly firing these individuals was "poor performance", despite the fact that 1. these individuals had been told they were doing well right up day they were fired and 2. all previous feedback (manager/peer reviews) is evidence to the contrary. The career ladder is completely opaque. Requirements and expectations for leveling and growth fluctuate as much as the product direction (a LOT). Reviews and feedback cycles mean nothing. They have gotten many people to join by saying that they do 6 month evals, so that you have an opportunity for promotion soon. Then afterwards, they tell people that (surprise!) there's some arbitrary rule (you've not been there for over a year), and that's the reason they can't be promoted this cycle. Getting good reviews during the performance evaluations does not mean 1. you are on track to getting promoted, or 2. that they will not fire you for "performance" reasons if you ask too many questions. You might have to get therapy to deal with the amount of insane stuff this place puts you through.

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5.0
Aug 7, 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Small teams, engineering driven Supportive, kind coworkers Fun offsites

Cons

Chaotic roadmaps with lack of focus and long term commitment

2.0
Mar 9, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Previously a great community. Some good writers. Good UX.

Cons

Huge pay cut January 2025, with 'hidden' reason (which was a decision to cut money to most writers). Nomination team and publication owners completely in the dark about decision to cut pay to writers Writers in the dark constantly emailing and asking what's going on. It was a horrible situation. Currently a mass exodus to Substack, with writers fed up and angry. Curation Team members are in the dark about how hard it is to be a nominator, but there's NO conversation between Curation Team and Nomination Team. One Curation team member was in the Medium Slack channel and was very defensive of the Medium team. Curation Team gets paid for their work. Nomination Team and pub editors may not get paid, but will work anyway and put work forward to try to get it boosted. Pub editors are doing a lot of free work and resentful. Culture of 'secrecy' and hierarchy is unhealthy. Why aren't the contract employees doing boost nomination invited to participate at offsites? Always feel like Medium is looking for ways to take any money away from writers they can. Medium may have a vision, but if they do, they aren't sharing it. It feels like an exclusive club and an us vs. them culture. Writers on Medium are not valued now. Some writers using AI have been paid thousands of dollars and chosen for features in the Staff Picks. Pubs are currently losing strength, and pub owners are disheartened and miserable.

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