LendUp Employee Reviews about "coworker"

Pros

Most talented coworkers I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Great catered lunches and fun quarterly engagement activities. Nice physical space.

Cons

LendUp looks like an exemplary employer however there is a clear and unmistakable difference between CI associates and the rest of the company. This deep distinction should be regarded with caution as you prepare to enter as a serf, "Rva applicant beware." The company reactive on many levels and passive to known issues regarding promotions, wages and meaningful employee recognition. Action evades the current operation. Lack of action communicates true intentions and priorities. company wide attrition is palpable but regarded as an industry norm. Ambition and pushing past limits by working on the edge of what's possible, is discouraged in CI or exploited depending on your role. This is omni evident in the disjointed bi costal office cultures and lack of free flowing institutional wisdom. value is solely placed on the information flow from SF to RVA although RVA is the face of the company to the customer and the voice of the customer to the company. The cast system is most distinguished and notable in the low and uncompetitive compensation package as you will be allured by organizational potential. The potential is real however the equation is unbalanced in the short and mid term. Compensation is "benchmarked" however not based on technical job title and education nor experience but base upon core job function, which is covert to applicants when accepting the role. This is a call center! You will barely have an opportunity to go to the bathroom and some days you won't. When you do you will feel guilty. CI vs all other operations in SF is modeled after the serfs and the lords. If you are in CI your are built into the lowest cast system. There is minimal regard for customer facing roles despite what may be communicated actions reveal the truth . You are merely a customer service representative no matter what key attributes or skills you walk in the door with. There is a disproportionate lack of focus on personal and professional growth in RVA with a false weight on the importance of customer insights, given in title, but gravely dismissed in practice. The customer facing inequity is evident in advancement opportunities, development opportunities, compensation and significantly unbalanced operational exposure. Advancement is illusive and transparency is reduced to a buzz word which is tossed around but falls significantly short. Information is only shared on a need to know basis everything else is classified. The company is slowly attempting to bridge the chasm but intentionally ignoring the key factors and details of what the embedded gap is.

Pros

Given my last review was voted 'most helpful', I wanted to update it after ~1 year at the company for both insiders and potential candidates to get a more transparent look at what's changed since we are a company that is going through rapid change. 1) Still engineering/data driven. This means we focus on building and investing in technology first. There is a reason why we are scaling orders of magnitudes better than big banks! Had a recent hackathon for the first time and talented folks across departments built some really things - servicing tool written in purescript, real-time chat bot, static analysis tools, etc. 2) Our social mission is very clearly the top priority and last say in decision-making. It is really easy to see the passion some of my coworkers have for making a difference in our customers' financial lives. It is personally incredibly rewarding to be working for a company that is making such a huge difference. In 2016, we saved customers an estimated $18.3m dollars (this study is available on our blog) and raised their credit scores by a significant amount. We can't save our customers that much without our business is doing well- we are able to undercut and provide better services than existing lenders, and we choose to do so 3) Transparency- It's clear to me that the executive team and management places a big emphasis on gathering feedback and listening to employees concerns. If you read some our more recent reviews, you may be concerned but Sasha and Jake have addressed and discussed every single one multiple times (will elaborate on this more in the con section) 4) Comp/benefits are getting bumped up as we get more funding! We are more at the median level now but to be more competitive hiring, we should be in the top quartile. 5) Unlimited vacation - people are skeptical of this but it's real and people take advantage of it! Most people I see take the equivalent of a week off per quarter. 6) Diversity and inclusion. The people here really care about diversity and inclusion because they are central to our mission - we are trying to bring in a (huge) group of people that is currently excluded by our financial system. This has led to redefining our company values, renaming all conference rooms after influential women/POC, formation of a Black Lives Matter book club, and employee-initiated volunteering. 7) There has been recent bad press from the CFPB ruling but if you read what the violations actually were, it is amazing we have so few and minor mistakes in such a heavily regulated and scrutinized industry (most of the violations were failure to display certain text disclosures back when LendUp was super young). Heck, even TransUnion and Equifax got slapped with a fine recently and their compliance/legal departments are probably bigger than our whole company. This is no excuse but I can say with integrity that we've never made a product decision that hurts the customer.

Cons

Focus on eng/data means other departments often get overlooked or left behind. This is a general problem in tech, not just at LendUp. Specifically, most of the recent negative reviews have been from folks leaving from our Customer Insights/Account Servicing department. This is incredibly unfortunate- as someone who has worked closely with many of them on a day to day basis I know how valuable their product expertise is. From talking to some insiders, the gist of what happened is we hired an incredibly bright, excited (and overqualified) team at low pay in exchange for career opportunity. The day to day job is mostly account servicing and handling customer calls and through this you get valuable exposure to our users and the product. I've seen many of our CI agents get promoted and moved around into different teams with paths to become data analysts or work in product. There is a LOT of career growth opportunity here but not everyone gets this same opportunity because at the end of the day we still need folks to answer calls and there are a limited number of internal positions open. The result has been high turnover on this team and a decision to outsource most of our servicing to Richmond, VA where it is much cheaper to hire. I still believe the future is bright for the company but it's unfortunate we lost some good people from CI (most left before a year) who left disgruntled and bitter at management.

Pros

Excellent benefits for a start-up - Health, Dental, Vision, Pet, 401K, MWF Catered Lunches Potential room for start-up growth Incredibly fun and intelligent coworkers Excellent mission and values Fun off-site events and happy hours Amazing HR Rep - You'll never meet a sweeter, more kind, helpful, and caring person.

Cons

Angry Customers -Be prepared for this. It's gonna happen, but don't take it personally. Lay-offs - Really messed up here. 5 weeks prior we were told that cut backs would be made, but we didn't have to worry about people losing their jobs and that it wouldn't come out of nowhere. It came out of nowhere. Not cool. Low Pay - This is to be expected. It is a startup, but eliminating Catered lunches would afford people raises. It's always less expensive to prepare your food at home vs. having it ordered and delivered. It was also stated within the past year that, compensation would be evaluated and improved. The improvement was expanding the job position ladder and shuffling around pay, but not much here really happened. If you want to keep your talent, you will eventually have to pay for it. Do not expect to get rich working here. Take the job for the experience, fellowship, and positive mission. Actions the are contrary to the company's mission and values. - While partnering with a company like Walmart does financially benefit LendUp, it is important to remember, that as a company, Walmart is completely contrary to what LendUp stands for. Many people who work for Walmart are on government assistance because the company refuses to pay them a living wage and decent benefits. The result is a workforce that is forever reliant on Walmart's low prices. Partnering with them, does not say much for the integrity of the mission.

Pros

I never understood what people meant when they said 'I enjoy coming to work everyday' until I started working at LendUp. The culture here at LendUp is its greatest asset. My coworkers are humble and practical, and they work on hard tasks with positive energies. Employees here prioritize integrity, and they speak to one another with a productive blend of candor and kindness. Employees are also really witty and funny. I get in a lot of laughs throughout the day. It's very rewarding to work at a company that is mission-driven like LendUp, because you get to work with individuals who are just as passionate about the cause as you are.

Cons

When you walk into the office, the floor is silent. Everyone is typing away at their screen, focused on their work. While walking through the office, this may give the impression that it's the type of place where it's easy to burn out from working hard, but you are wrong. The work is all consuming because it's interesting, meaningful, and important work that needs to be done. And work life balance here is very reasonable!

Pros

Unbelievably smart and driven coworkers. A truly mission driven organization looking to make a difference in people's lives. Opportunity to work on interesting, impactful projects and shape the future of the company.

Cons

Growing quickly sometimes means things fall through the cracks or aren't correctly communicated to everyone who needs to know - certainly never intentional, but a side effect of being a fast growing startup. Sometimes hard to achieve work/life balance.

Pros

My coworkers at LendUp are brilliant and respectful. They care about doing things well and correcting what isn't working. What more could you ask for?

Cons

Every team here is running at 100% all the time. If you work here, it will ask a lot of you.

Pros

1. Great Mission: It feels amazing knowing that the work I'm doing is making a real impact and helping people that usually have no where else to turn 2. Smart & Driven Coworkers: As a junior engineer its awesome knowing that I'm working with and learning from some of the smartest people around 3. Awesome culture: While working here you feel a strong sense of ownership and are encouraged to speak your mind or fix anything that you feel is broken. I've never felt more free at any other company 4. Exciting: We are always trying to move quickly and taking on new and exciting projects. As a junior engineer this is a big plus since I am never bored! 5. Fun: Everyone is always smiling and very friendly. Friday happy hours are really fun

Cons

I wish I could drive my car into work. But thats the price you pay for working in the city!