Nest Employee Reviews about "leadership"
70% would recommend to a friend
(19 total reviews)
Marwan Fawaz
97% approve of CEO
Found 19 of over 242 reviews
Updated Nov 19, 2023
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Top Review Highlights by Sentiment
Excerpts from user reviews, not authored by Glassdoor
- "The benefits are great now that we are under their umbrella but there is a culture clash." (in 13 reviews)
- "based leadership across the executive team in response to Tony, which results in micromanagement, irrational or stalled decision" (in 6 reviews)
Reviews about "leadership"
Return to all Reviews- 1.0Jan 31, 2016MarketingFormer Employee, more than 3 yearsPalo Alto, CA
Pros
- Great resume builder - Nest is leading in the connected home space - Good products - Incredibly smart and passionate people working on the business (that are not senior management) - The people in middle management and execution are very collaborative
Cons
- 100% internally focused - don't think about the consumer when developing marketing plans, only worry about what the CEO and other Google leadership cares about - Fear based leadership - Meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings and many times, meetings about other meetings - Sr. Leadership are incredibly insecuredibly insecuredibly insecure and not trusting of their employees - Ego driven culture at the top, not open to collaboration or any different points of view - Company culture is severely lacking - though, they are trying to improve this - Overall the senior leadership was hired when Nest was a tiny Silicon Valley start up - the leadership they have in place now is not capable of evolving it into the highly functional, creative marketing team it needs to be. - Commute from SF to Palo Alto - they highly discourage working from the city (or even from the Google SF office) - I witnessed a member of senior leadership ask another member of senior leadership to get their team to write positive Glass Door reviews - so clearly they know that there is an issue with company morale.
23 - 4.0Feb 24, 2016Anonymous EmployeeCurrent Employee, more than 1 year
Pros
Talented team, exciting vision, interesting work that keeps you on your toes every day. This is not a place to come to retire or to just collect a paycheck.
Cons
Leadership can sometimes be too involved. Projects often get re-scoped last minute, making it hard to meet deadlines without working long hours. It all comes from a place of wanting to make exceptional products -- but it's not scalable and can negatively affect employee morale.
- 5.0Jan 7, 2018Software EngineerCurrent Employee, less than 1 yearPalo Alto, CA
Pros
Nest is the keystone of Alphabet's strategy of enabling a smart, connected and comfortable home. This has manifested in Nest going beyond its iconic thermostats, launching similarly iconic products in more categories, such as home security and safety, with many more on the way. The team is still relatively small for the scope. As a result, an individual can make a much higher impact compared to similarly sized peers with several challenging opportunities to work on . Yet, the work-life balance is great! The quality of engineers is great, on par with Google, evident in a constant bidirectional flow of people between Nest and Google. There are frequent team outings and fun events. There was a period of upper management turmoil in 2016. That is far in the rear view mirror now and the current leadership has streamlined the organization. Each team has a clear charter, most have experienced leaders, and work well together.
Cons
The original Nest software infrastructure platform was complicated and had a lot of technical debt. This is rapidly changing with the investing in a state of the art platform showing great results.
9 - 5.0Dec 10, 2014Anonymous EmployeeCurrent Employee, more than 3 yearsPalo Alto, CA
Pros
- you decide what your role & impact is here at Nest - it's a start-up with the talent & resources to quickly become a Fortune 100 company - the leadership, Tony & Matt specifically, know what they want, provide clarity, and work hard to take us from good to great - seeing the other reviews & comments and having been at other companies with diffuse leadership & direction, i'm more than happy to be at Nest
Cons
- to grow at this pace is hard - to onboard new people is disorienting, for both the people coming on board & people managing them
- 3.0Sep 15, 2014EngineerCurrent Employee, less than 1 yearPalo Alto, CA
Pros
- There's a roadmap with great potential in a heating market - Great people in general - Good culture, even though there's growing pains (see cons) - You are a Google employee this means two things: access to an incredible wealth of resources and career development opportunities and... perks!
Cons
- Everything revolves around the CEO. It's a dangerous mix of cult of personality and Stockholm syndrome. Comments like 'he's the next Steve Jobs' are not uncommon, while people proudly say things like 'I'm used to Tony screaming at me.' Everyone dreads meetings with Tony because he *will* flip if he doesn't like what he sees. Somehow that's perceived as good leadership. - Everything has to go through Tony. From product development to retail marketing, every decision is ultimately made by him. This leads to two week turnaround times for every decision. Which leads me to the next point: - Nest wants to be nimble as a startup, and yet the management/development process is what you'd expect of a 20,000 employee corporation based in Cupertino (wink wink, nudge nudge.) Most people I know coming from startups, and even big companies, are incredibly frustrated by it. - Talking about startups: even if the roadmap looks great and the pace is 'set to eleven', this is a big company now. Your contribution won't make you a millionaire. You won't get a significant stake in the company, so the expectation to work long hours (which other reviewers clearly mark as a con) is misguided. - Career development is not really a thing. If you are an Engineer, that's what you'll be for the rest of your stay at Nest. Most managers are hired from Apple.
30 - 5.0Feb 24, 2016Business DevelopmentCurrent Employee, more than 1 yearPalo Alto, CA
Pros
The culture is driven. People are intrinsically motivated by putting out new hardware and services that revolutionize the home and the energy industry in a positive, meaningful way. There's *nobody* here that's dead weight (at least, that I've seen). To a person, everyone I've worked with here has signed up to that lofty set of expectations, and executes accordingly - with the customer always top-of-mind. People here are exceptional at doing over talking about doing. Tony is a passionate and straight-shooting leader. You always, always know where you stand. This isn't one of those orgs where leadership says one thing and does another. I've been in those. They suck. This isn't that. What we do, we do well. We launched three hardware products and a number of software services in the last year. The products all have 4 star ratings on Amazon, so customers seem to be picking up what we're laying down. Nest really does reward strong performance. Not just financially, but in other meaningful ways. There's a culture of recognition, and it's not tops-down, but peer-to-peer as well.
Cons
Did I say the culture was driven? I don't see it as a con, but it's not for everyone. This isn't Disneyland, though I know some that have more negative things to say in the press might think that. What we're trying to do is not easy and cannot be done in a 40 hour work-week. Multi-channel sales of hardware products with insanely innovative algos tied to great apps require tight coordination and phenomenal execution, which can create some stress - but that's the nature of these types of products and services - especially when they're really innovative and unique. So - not at all a con as much as a "this is how the world works."
- 4.0Sep 12, 2014Operations AnalystCurrent Employee, less than 1 yearPalo Alto, CA
Pros
Nest is a very collaborative place to work where you can ask coworkers and leaders questions and insight. Leadership is strong and wants to know where they need your help. It's great to see that they share roadmap and direction of the company so that everyone understands our long term goals and how this will impact the business. I love the fact that it still feels like a start-up but has all of the Google benefits. We work hard and have drive because the work is impacting the business and the future of an conscious home.
Cons
Teams are growing to support having a lot of project with hard deadlines. This is expected but means there is not enough time to get everything done and requires us to reset priorities and ensure you are working on what will make the most impact for the business and consumer.
- 2.0Sep 24, 2015Anonymous EmployeeFormer Employee
Pros
Amazing benefits since Google acquired the company. Fun, smart group of people who generally want to do the right thing and believe in the potential of Nest to change the world.
Cons
Fear-based leadership across the executive team in response to Tony, which results in micromanagement, irrational or stalled decision-making, and a very reactionary culture. People work hard at Nest, but spend most of it chasing their tails and scratching their heads rather than being inspired or empowered to do their best work.
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