Knack Reviews
68% would recommend to a friend
(16 total reviews)
Derek Hutson
100% approve of CEO
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Found 16 of over 18 reviews
Updated May 15, 2023
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- 5.0Sep 4, 2022Anonymous EmployeeCurrent Employee, more than 1 year
Pros
Honestly, I was pretty pessimistic about Knack until recently. About two months ago the former CEO was replaced and things are definitely better! The new CEO seems to know what he's doing and there is good forward movement on many fronts. The overall atmosphere is much more positive and there's a new excitement! I think there are great things in store! The people have always been fantastic!
Cons
The former CEO was in his role for way too long and, unfortunately, he's still at the company. At least his micromanagement and negative attitude is much less impactful now!
1 - 4.0May 16, 2022Senior Software EngineerFormer Employee, more than 3 years
Pros
- Good autonomy as a developer to go heads down and get things done - Great co-workers and good WLB overall - You have to wear many hats to work at a company like Knack so there's plenty of room for growth as a developer. Just make sure you advocate for changes that will help both you grow and the company succeed. - Interesting product that has near infinite amounts of complexity. You will not be bored. - Bi-annual retreats were a good time
Cons
- Pay isn't as high as you can get elsewhere as a developer but it's not bad either. 401k but no match. - Technical debt is a huge struggle for Knack. There is lots of old code that customers rely on that makes the platform really challenging to change. The company is willing to make improvements, you just have to really be ready to be a driving force to make changes. - Growing pains keeping up with customer issues, infrastructure cost, bugs, etc. - On-call schedule can be brutal but mostly because of technical debt that made certain processes harder than they needed to be.
3
Knack Response2yThank you for sharing your feedback. We appreciate your input and we are continuing to work on comp as well as addressing technical debt and infrastructure challenges. We also recently brought in a new CEO. We wish you the absolute best in your future opportunities ahead!
- 5.0Aug 13, 2022Software EngineerCurrent Employee, less than 1 year
Pros
I've been at Knack for about a year, and a lot has changed in that time! A new CEO has taken over and there's a new leadership team in place. It seems like this new team is moving things in the right direction after a couple of rough patches under previous leadership and previous CEO, and I'm very hopeful about the direction that the company is going in. I love the flexible schedules and the remote-first aspects of the job. I'm able to travel the world while still doing my job. I love that!
Cons
There's a lot of change happening right now and still a fair amount of ambiguity, but overall things are moving in the right direction, I feel.
3 - 4.0May 18, 2022Senior Full Stack EngineerFormer Employee, more than 3 years
Pros
The problem space that Knack is trying to solve is huge, and as a result engineers get to work on interesting real-world problems on a regular basis (projects I worked on personally ranged from managing highly dynamic databases in near real time to working on DSLs for an internal rules engine, with everything in between). Involvement in every part of product is encouraged, and the customer base is both passionate about the product (when it works well) and using it to make real world impact.
Cons
Lots of technical debt and putting out fires, larger goals for the product and company Micromanagement was rampant and there was a strong tendency to reinvent systems for everything from project management to architectural patterns. Sometimes this was justified due to the complexity of the product, but a lot of the time it felt like novelty for its own sake and did not necessarily push the product forward.
Knack Response2yFirstly, thank you for sharing your feedback. We appreciate your thoughts. We are addressing some of the issues you raised by empowering team leads, bringing in a new CEO, and changing our reporting structure. We are also actively hiring to ramp up our ability to deal with technical debt and infrastructure challenges. Wishing you the best in your future endeavors!
- 5.0Apr 14, 2022Customer Service SpecialistCurrent Employee, more than 1 year
Pros
Knack expects a lot out of the support team but you get a lot of autonomy and you see something new everyday. It's a fun product to support and will really challenge you. Knack is going through some growing pains but leadership seems committed to adding the right pieces and sustainable processes. One thing I really appreciate is the lack of egos in the entire company. This includes leadership, but especially the engineers. We are often the ones giving them bad news about some kind of tech issue, but they are always super helpful and will take the time to explain everything. That hasn't been the case in some of my previous jobs and it makes a big difference.
Cons
Knack is bootstrapped so it seems like we're always stretched right to the breaking point. This can sometimes lead to a feeling that you can never catch your breathe. There seems to be a lot of hiring, so hopefully this is changing.
2 - 3.0Aug 23, 2021Anonymous EmployeeFormer Employee, less than 1 year
Pros
The team is full of wonderful people who really care about everyone. It's also the most diverse team I've been on and I definitely miss that aspect. There was rarely a dull meeting or a chat where people weren't putting your individual needs and concerns at a high level of importance. The core customer base is very excited about new features and happy to work with the engineering team on complicated issues, which is really great to see. There truly is something special about the product that the customers love.
Cons
Echoing other reviews here, the CEO is a 10X "I can do it best" sort of person. Fairly regularly the team was putting out fires started by the CEO jumping in and "helping". Often this would lead to finger-pointing from leadership at the engineering team for taking too long to solve problems and fix bugs caused by the CEO. Lack of consistent participation in non-job function teambuilding and casual conversation could be seen as a lack of work. Social interactions would often be used by upper management to assess performance instead of task completion and quality of work.
8Knack Response2yThank you so much for taking the time to share your feedback. We appreciate your input. We recently brought in a new CEO and are empowering team leads with greater autonomy. We wish you the best in your future opportunities!
- 5.0Jul 13, 2022Director of Customer SuccessCurrent Employee, less than 1 year
Pros
The best thing about working here are the people. Everyone is so welcoming and seems very happy to be at work. It really is a place that everyone makes an impact and at the end of the day, you can feel happy and proud of the work that you're producing to help the wheels move. With it being 100% remote and unlimited PTO, it's a place that I can really make the work life balance become a reality.
Cons
Just need takes some time to settle in.
2 - 5.0Aug 12, 2022Operations AssociateCurrent Employee, less than 1 year
Pros
-positive, supportive remote work culture is a PRIORITY and they are always looking for ways to improve and grow -100% remote from the very beginning - so they have been honing the culture for 9 years -unlimited PTO -great medical, dental and vision plans -paid all staff retreats
Cons
-no matching 401K...YET! They are working on it!
2 - 2.0Apr 6, 2022Anonymous EmployeeFormer Employee, more than 1 year
Pros
Not a lot of pros to share.
Cons
The company verbally says they want to have a good work life balance and flexible hours but meeting overload made it so you had very strict hours and no flexibility. The CEO is a micro-manager and slows down progress on anything since it all has to go through him and move at his speed. The flat hierarchy and consensus building sounds good but just means that decisions don't get made and you have meeting after meeting and write the same plans in many documents while discussing them until you are forced to agree with the CEOs ideas. The product is built poorly and hard to support which leads to lots of after hours support issues and ruins work life balance.
6Knack Response2yFirst of all, we’d like to thank you for your input. We are addressing some of the issues you raised by bringing in a new CEO, changing the speed at which decisions are made, and creating more of a reporting structure with team leads empowered to make decisions. We wish you the absolute best in your future endeavors!
- 5.0Aug 15, 2022OperationsCurrent Employee
Pros
The company embraced and optimized the virtual team environment long before COVID to attract great talent. It shows in the culture, quality of team and technology.
Cons
As part of a fast growing team, there are areas where additional process and documentation are needed.
3
Knack Reviews FAQs
Knack has an overall rating of 3.9 out of 5, based on over 18 reviews left anonymously by employees. 68% of employees would recommend working at Knack to a friend and 68% have a positive outlook for the business. This rating has improved by 1% over the last 12 months.
68% of Knack employees would recommend working there to a friend based on Glassdoor reviews. Employees also rated Knack 4.3 out of 5 for work life balance, 4.2 for culture and values and 3.6 for career opportunities.
According to reviews on Glassdoor, employees commonly mention the pros of working at Knack to be benefits, culture, senior leadership and the cons to be career development, compensation.
