Ooyala Employee Reviews about "team"

Pros

-In the TV and media space which is a booming industry -Interesting problems to solve in sales, customer success, product and engineering .... if you want to build your resume, this is the right place to do it at -Family and work+life friendly .... managers like mine are also respectful about when we need to work from home or take a breather -Reasonably good benefits -Depending on the manager, good opportunities to take an idea and run with it to a done state -Good to great customers across the globe who are pulling for us to win because our competitors disappear the moment you sign a contract with them -Management team that is at long last investing in customer and engineering teams and believe me that this is long overdue -Seasoned leadership (CEO, COO and CFO) that will make unpopular decisions like firing a completely useless engineering leader or removing toxicity in HR -High potential but raw talent in every office like Headquarters, Mexico, India and London -Senior management is accessible and means it when they say they want to hear from us .... from the CEO and COO to the founder -The C suite is pairing the old timers which mostly are inexperienced with more seasoned mentors and this is good because it has been one of the reasons why we groundhog-day so much

Cons

-Rumor mill counters everything management says .... find out who the gossip mongers are and fire them (HINT it is the middle managers) -Transparency vacuum gets filled by gossip and it doesn't need to be -New office is nice but definitely a downgrade from the previous facility -Too many instances of "this is the highest priority" .... either one thing is or nothing is -Some of the product managers are incompetent or inexperienced so my fingers are crossed on new leadership -Lazy sales guys that pawn off their work on the solution architects, legal and product -Dallas and London engineering leaders don't get along and it has impacted our product strategy .... either they get along or they should get out -Employee attrition is high in certain offices but on the plus side, it is opening up opportunities for existing and new blood -Inconsistent management and communication from managers .... some of them are really good and in the know and others aren't -Opaque budgeting plans and processes .... I get the sense my manager often doesn't know what his budget is

Pros

The company has had recent leadership changes but seems to have a solid team now in place. Great products, good looking plan, many A players.

Cons

There are a few employees who probably need to go, who aren't onboard with the vision or leadership and create negative energy.

Pros

- Flexible working hours - Opportunity to get promoted - Free food, drinks etc - Good colleagues

Cons

- Too many changes. Sold OVP and ad tech business and there is not much left of the company - They are living of what they did 10 years ago - Approximately fired 50% of their employees the last two years - Wouldn't be surprised to see the remainder of Ooyala being sold cheaply so the management team can get out - Not a good top-down mindset - People are afraid to speak up in case they get fired

Pros

Decent tech stack (unless you're on test team). Beer every now and then. Ping pong table. Things are much better if you're in Santa Clara. Food: Comes from restaurant menus. Great if you have metabolism of a 22 year old, but a constant struggle if you're older.

Cons

They've laid off people in Feb'17 so take all reviews (positive and negative) after that date with a pinch of salt. That includes this one of course. A VERY bad place to start your career: There are no processes, no accountability, no planning. Until some guy with Agile experience joined our team, we didn't have daily standups, sprint reviews/retros etc. You'll learn everything that you should NOT do as a good developer when it comes to processes and soft-skills. No one's given any training on any topics, even free/internal-trainings are not encouraged. There are no team meetings at team or site level. Stagnation in US: There were plans and promises of growth in Dallas, but then the strategy changed and they opened up office in India. Which is ramping up, at the same time as layoffs in US. Perhaps a good time to join the Indian or Mexican centers! Bad management: A very senior manager said things like 'scr#w the unit tests' and something to the effect 'deploy whatever we have to production, our bonuses are tied to it' (that manager has been promoted twice and is now even more senior). He has multiple teams reporting to him, but he spends most of his time debugging some technical issues, and never held a team meeting. Things get delivered despite leadership, not because of. Most interactions he has with team are trying to find whose fault it was. It's never his. Right now team is struggling with very high number of bugs they were forced to deliver over last 1-2 years. When CTO came to Dallas, during his inaugural tour, he was sleeping in the meetings. Promotions: It's rare to see that managers receiving more promotions than junior team members. It's baffling while lay offs are ongoing. Every manager got one promotion, and some got 2 in a short span! Cronyism and the Indian bias: This is subjective so I'll just state the facts. Half or more employees are Indian at this location and still during the layoffs there was only one Indian among some 10-12 that were laid off. Out of 5 engineering managers, two were not Indian, one was the laid off and the other quite shortly after. Unlimited PTOs: It actually works the opposite of what they advertise, because you need your manager's approval. Bait and switch: I have heard of multiple people hired with promises that they'll work on Golang and then they are made to work on other languages with zero exposure to Golang.

Pros

Very little to say in this section. Seems that all the pros about the company have gone out the window. Still some good people here.

Cons

I am not one that needs to be on a soap box, but I read a review this morning entitled This Isn't Normal - and I want to second what this individual has said. I have been with the company for 2 years, and so much has changed. 4 CEO's, which means 4 new directions. They should have stuck with the first CEO - he was awesome and truly was able to see vision and lead the team. The 2nd one had no business being here, and we were all happy when he left. The interim CEO who was the GC, also had no business being the CEO, he was so full of himself that was in the end his demise. Now the new CEO, I don't even know where to start. Look this guy up folks, all he does is dismantle companies. So those awaiting a layoff package, you can keep waiting- I'm sure you'll get it, but there won't be anything in it - the exiting of employees recently has shown how little they respect the work/effort you've done and how clueless they are on how to exit someone respectfully. The recent changes in Engineering should speak volumes to you. A VP leaving in EMEA because he just didn't want to be a part of what was becoming of the company, and then the SVP being walked out and blamed for everything. He had no ability to do anything because of the remaining founder who is still here trying to manipulate everything. I agree with the other post. about the witch hunt - it's a shame the company tries to silence people. For the most part I believe the IC's here want to do the right thing and want to try and rebuild the company. But I also agree that it's becoming hard to look at myself in the mirror for allowing the type of behavior I see here to continue. I've questioned myself and the work that I do, because it's become OK for managers and leaders to bully employees, publicly humiliate them and more. You think people are out interviewing - you are so right. If you aren't out interviewing you deserve to go down with the new leadership team. The leadership team will tell you they need you to be successful, but the truth behind that is they only need you to have the position active, so it's more favorable to their bigger plan of selling. the company off piece by piece. The new HR team is a joke. Talk about being controlled. No ability to speak up, no ability to work for the employees- just a cowardly group that 'needs' their jobs so they do unethical things. Sales organization - not sure why some of these guys are still here, an organization that struggles just to bring in a $50k deal. Have some dignity guys, you are loyal to your CRO, but in the end, he has the package he needs to stay, and you'll be left holding the bag. Good Engineers are dropping like flies. With no leadership or support for them, who could blame them. Calling all external recruiters --- ripe for the picking here.

Pros

Excellent work-life balance No micro-managing Free food and snacks GREAT PEOPLE

Cons

Frequent Lay-offs Product not up to par with the rest of the industry No employee recognition or reward Ooyala recently lost some of its best talent which either walked right out the door or were laid off. The past year was spent focusing on products and customer retention but has done little to maintain customers or focus on product. The morale is low not because everyone works from home, but because the product sucks and the customers are unhappy. The service teams spend 24/7 putting out fires with very little help in the organization. When a customer leaves no one understand why, but then blames it on the service teams, not on the products. There was at one point excellent room for growth but with recent layoffs, and low-morale, you're expected to do your job and pretend it makes you happy. There is no middle management whatsoever to give you feedback on your job or work on developing your skills. Product builds what they want to build, and not what the customers are asking for. Items listed on Product Roadmap take forever to be released, or are released half-assed.

Pros

Ooyala is in a time of transformation with a rock solid leadership team now at the helm. Super smart people believing in the mission and working together to get there. Considerate of work life balance, WORK SMART! Be ready to move fast and be accountable for your performance and actively managing your development.

Cons

Being that this is a time of tremendous change within the Company, transparency and communication could be ramped up a bit.

Pros

Great benefits. Provides a lot of room for career growth. Has a very structured Human Resource team and operates like a big company. Free food and unlimited PTO.

Cons

The company is experiencing a high turn over. Has a hard time retaining talent. Smart but inexperience managers who does not know how to lead a team and tends to make things more stressful and complicated than it should be. Although the company is overly generous with gifts and compensations, they have a hard time tackling the root of the issues which is why employees are leaving.

Pros

Good, medium sized company: Established and growing and still a lot of opportunity to have an impact Very exciting, fast moving industry Wonderful customers Great culture Lots of opportunity for travel and international exposure Big ambitions for the future and good financial backing from Telstra Software Group

Cons

Processes not always easy to follow and can sometimes seem onerous Management don't always put enough emphasis on supporting their teams and coaching them to develop skills

Pros

Great culture, food, unlimited PTO, beer and pizza Friday's, work life balance, ping pong, and lots of team fun! Bonuses are always nice too.

Cons

Going through a transformation but after 10 years it was time. Changes at exec leadership haven't helped but that is soon to be solidified. Engineering in a bit of disarray but we too are coming together. Engineering leadership is working hard and the results will be proven. HR Dept seems to get a bad rap but they have also been through many changes. HR Business Partner is highly respected for her efforts and should not go unnoticed. Hard to find anyone that is more supportive than her. Director of Recruiting and that team has delivered without any excuses bringing in talent under any cause. Product Team is on fire and has added some missing pieces of talent that will do nothing but help the company hit our milestones. Sales team may be better now that it has ever been in the past with great leadership and team members.