Avoid the hype, highly dysfunctional, presents well at first - then ... - Anonymous employee Tucows Employee Review

1.0
Dec 10, 2020
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Legacy domain business is extremely profitable, able to prop up more dysfunctional business units - Flexible working hours (assuming Toronto time) - Hiring is slow, expect several months buffer time

Cons

- Diversity and inclusion still a major problem, hiring a few token women in mid level roles isn't enough. The conservative libertarian CEO was paralyzed during BLM and COVID-19. - Heavy meeting culture, very difficult to find time focused time - expect long hours, regardless of office location. - Compensation is low compared to industry average, usual abuse of uni interns which is popular in GTA. - Only life'ers are trusted at the C suite level, each team has a cherry picked "trusted" ally of the CEO - super unprofessional and heavy nepotism. - Hiring and career advancement is very broken, unclear what HR actually does besides payroll and firing paperwork. - Several fiefdoms, especially on the support & technology arms - no wonder so many major projects have failed. - Tech leads against any modern technology from within the past decade, cloud computing - forget about it.

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Tucows Response
5y
Hi, Thank you so much for your feedback. We appreciate you taking the time. Rest assured, we’re taking your points seriously and working on improving how we do things. We want to make sure we address the comments you raised, learn from your experience, and do better. Please reach out to us at TalkToUs@Tucows.com; we’d love to hear from you. If you want to remain anonymous, you can submit further feedback here as well: https://bit.ly/TucowsTalkToUs To address some of the points you raised here: - Re: Diversity and Inclusion: We are continually taking on new initiatives to make Tucows a more Diverse, Equitable, and Inclusive workplace. We’re proud of the work we’ve done so far, but we recognize that we have A LOT more to do to make sure everyone feels heard and has a safe space to share. - Re: Communication and Work: We are actively working on making the way we communicate and work more efficient. We know constant meetings can get annoying. That’s why we launched and shared the results of an Inclusive Communication Survey. We’re currently finalizing steps in setting up new initiatives that will hopefully make communication at Tucows more inclusive and efficient. - Re: Compensation: Our compensation considers the job role and costs associated with living in a particular location. We also look at things from a total compensation view. We pride ourselves in offering an overall package that includes a competitive market salary, robust health + lifestyle benefits package, generous time-off, stock options, and bonuses (for some roles). - Re: Innovation: We’re continually improving the way we do things, and we encourage everyone to bring suggestions and ideas forward. We try to build a culture where everyone is made to feel safe, welcome, and heard.

Explore other reviews about Tucows

5.0
May 27, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great people to work with at hover

Cons

I have faced no cons until now

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Tucows Response
1y
Hi there! Thank you for leaving a review. We are happy to hear that you enjoy working at Tucows!
2.0
Jul 13, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I was able to accomplish a lot during my time there, and cross-functioning teams that I worked with were always appreciative of my efforts and contributions.

Cons

Colleagues were generally unwilling to help onboard or explain technical details, and there was little interest in taking ownership of the project beyond dictating their preferred approaches. Support for learning or adopting technology was severely lacking, and team contributions to actual development work were non-existent (commit log during this time period can prove this). Discussions often drifted into lengthy debates on theoretical or unrelated technical topics rather than focusing on practical solutions. Overall, it felt like there was more emphasis on control than on genuine teamwork or shared progress. There also seemed to be an ongoing struggle among team members to assert themselves as leaders, with more focus on dictating how they think software should be built and teams should function (with continual emphasis on their expertise and where I sit in the team hierarchy) rather than delivering high-quality software. Even after raising concerns, the toxic atmosphere persisted, as some seemed more interested in positioning themselves as leaders to compensate for their lack of technical ability.

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