Poor development environment and becoming a corporate husk - Software Engineer Smartsheet Employee Review

2.0
Jun 27, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* Really friendly, knowledgeable, and competent engineers across the company * Great compensation (base, annual bonus, RSUs) and benefits * WFH

Cons

* A terrible work environment for devs. People are stressed, overworked, and burned out * Middle management that tries to just please the people above them and produce results, forcing all of the work and stress to fall onto the devs below them. Everyone is afraid of the CTO and bows down to his every demand and just expect the devs to carry the burden of some conversation they had absolutely nothing to do with * Product/Management over-promising features, forcing arbitrary and tight deadlines not based on actual estimates on how long the feature will take to deliver * Product and leadership constantly change directions in feature, causing teams to fall into design hell and extremely last minute changes (scope creep) * Feels like company only cares about the bottom line. It's always about delivering feature after feature as soon as possible without caring how it's affecting the culture and the morale * On-call

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Smartsheet Response
2y
Thank you for your review. I'm sorry to hear that you are struggling with how priorities are set and decisions are made in the Product and Engineering organization at Smartsheet. It is always my goal that we foster a culture where everyone can succeed and can voice their concerns and feel heard. We generally seek broad alignment on our path forward. It is also true that at times there will be decisions made that some of us disagree with, including even me. This is inherent to any empowered organization. I encourage you to reach out to your People Business Partner, your manager, or directly to me with specific examples of situations that impacted you adversely where you did not feel heard or priorities changed last minute. I commit to working with you to help you get to a better place on this. Thank you again for your feedback, and I hope we hear from you soon. – Praerit Garg, Chief Product Officer and EVP of Engineering

Explore other reviews about Smartsheet

5.0
Jun 11, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great collaborative environment and competitive

Cons

Easily overwhelmed with phone calls, chats, and emails.

1.0
May 26, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Supportive of AI tooling. I had a great manager. I heard the severance packages are great, but I left of my own volition, so I don’t have personal experience.

Cons

Complete lack of direction or management at the mid to high levels of the company in product and engineering (most everyone left or was pushed out by cronyism from the private equity acquisition). No more equity offered to employees. No opportunities for promotion. They’ve shipped or are shipping most of the core products (including the core “sheet” aka Grid app) to India and have laid off tons of employees (somewhere between 12% and 15% of the company). Upper management did the thing where they had the US developers interview tons of people out of India, and then about half a year later laid off tons US developers, including several of the people that did the interviews. Upper management said that the India teams would be working on other projects, but clearly that was a lie. They laid off people without consulting their managers, or their manager’s managers, and without knowing what team they actually worked on or what they did. So entire teams were laid off unbeknownst to them. Very quick and poor handoffs to India, if any. You will likely be working on multiple teams at once, or moved to multiple teams during your time there in short periods of time. On-call can be a nightmare. There is no culture of any kind. Basically do not work here, whether you’re out of the US, India, or Bulgaria (the main countries for developers).

1
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Smartsheet Response
1w
Thank you for your honesty. While we’re glad that you had a great team and the tools you needed, it’s incredibly tough to hear that other aspects of your experience were less than great. To your point about equity, we’d like to clarify that we do offer a limited equity pool with specific eligibility. That said, navigating transition is already tough, and adding in other aspects like global shifts and new leadership can make it feel even harder. We know the dust hasn’t completely settled, and we understand that we have a lot of work to do to repair employee trust and morale. We’ve set off on that journey, and we appreciate all of this feedback along the way. Thank you, and we wish you all the best in your next chapter.
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