Opower Employee Reviews about "work life balance"

Pros

Well dogs, free food and booze, you can work from home, and now that we are part of Oracle the 401k is matching, and benefits aren't terrible

Cons

There is a lack of morale at the company. It's been building since the layoffs in April and has just snowballed. The lies, poor management style, and massive changes have killed off what made this company great. I have lost any interest in coming in to work on a daily basis. The excitement that I had for our mission and my part in it, has been replaced by a crushing sense of seeking only the bottom line. Many of us have become hourly, receiving pay cuts in the process. A terrible work/life balance has now been made worse.

Pros

Great mission, smart people, good benefits, fun atmosphere.

Cons

The work/life balance isn't the best.

Pros

Great work/life balance Nicest people I've ever met A few amazing engineers still work here Profitability soon

Cons

Most of the great engineers have left Hiring standards have dropped Unambitious R&D roadmap

Pros

- meaningful and high-impact mission - great well-lit office with open floor plan - excellent benefits & vacation - lots of free food & fun activities - coworkers are smart and friendly - nice equipment for engineers (top of the line MBP with 3 monitors, standing desk, ergo KB/mouse) - excellent work/life balance with freedom to work from home (though you won't want to)

Cons

- software is a bit hacky and not truly SaaS - lot of office politics and too many meetings about meetings - overly focused on process improvement - too much reorganization - typical growing pains of startup

Pros

- Great work / life balance. Ability to work from home as needed. - Collaborative and fun environment that fosters continuous learning and improvement. - Mission critical problems with a real world impact. - Compensation and benefits are slightly above market rate. Base salary, RSU's, commute and gym membership bonus. - New San Francisco Office planned for April 2015. From what we have seen and heard, it's amazing. - Stock has remained stable and we have had three excellent quarters–beating Wall Street expectations, despite fluctuations in the market.

Cons

- Some small changes to Executive Team. There are a few critical hires that are needed in 2015 to help us expand the market opportunity. - Recently took away one floating holiday and forced O's to take MLK day as a paid holiday. Understandable, but would have been nice to have an employee vote in this, or to be given back a floater. - RSU's do not commence on start date, but begin each quarter during Executive meetings (for approval of shares). This means your shares will not start vesting until a scheduled date (Feb 18th, May 18th, Aug 18th, Nov 18th).

Pros

Please read my thoughts below

Cons

Working at Opower/Oracle was one of the most disheartening experiences of my professional life. Much like a toxic relationship, it was so surreal that it took distance to recognize how manipulative and evil it was. This is no longer a startup that cares about the environment or your career development. Product teams called 'tribes' as in tribal warfare, were organized to fight against each other for resources or to get initiatives on the sacred roadmap. It was impossible to get anything built because the engineering teams were incorrectly staffed. The development department is a poster child for 'full stack dilettante' any specialization was circa 1990. User testing, research, and data science are nonexistent, they fired that entire department before the acquisition, all that's left is a shell of its former self. The design and engineering teams, operate like a molasses waterfall. Management will lie to you about promotions here and there, oh next year we'll have the budget. They'll also interview prospective hires, tell them the job has closed, then weeks later tell them it's open again. The only way to become promoted is by sheer chance or by counter offering. Expect to be stuck on the one project forever. Want to take initiative and lead another project? They'll hire someone else to do that and keep you in your silo. On the plus side: the nice thing about the level of effort expected is you did not need to show up for work. So work life balance was a major plus, nobody cared and you could coast along into oblivion or just… work from home… Think you can use google drive, or dropbox, or anything modern? Think again! Oracle's tyrannical stronghold on being a monolith extends into its totalitarian culture: home brewed horrifying mail client from 1990 check, oradocs (aka bad google drive which misplaces documents) check, impossible to use expense reporting tool check.

Pros

Designed to do good for environment, utilities and utility customers. First impression - fun loving, easy going and incredibly intelligent workforce.

Cons

Work life balance is very poor. Always on culture. The company suffers from ivy league syndrome, lots of employees in their first job, hungry for success but with little work or real life experience. No true team spirit, a lot of folk are just out for themselves. You have to watch your back!

Pros

Recent IPO, current employees are intelligent, passionate and truly encompass the company values, hyper-growth mode, unique culture, several cool perks, double bottom line mission/vision.

Cons

As the company has grown there is an even greater need for management/leadership training, better benefit offerings, and more flexible work options to maintain a healthy work/life balance.

Pros

Smart, generally engaged co-workers Opportunities for mentorship and learning from some of the best Unique company at the intersection of energy and technology Outside brand recognition and interest in company Contrary to what others say, good work/life balance compared with consulting/banking, probably bad when compared with working a more general 'industry' role

Cons

Increasingly confused mission, value proposition of original energy efficiency product was direct and marketable, but increasing forays into broader aspects of utility operations have less clear value proposition from the outside and are problematically moving the company away from its pure play roots and focus on double bottom line Frustratingly, there's also a pervasive thread of elitism in the organization, which manifests itself in management seeming ignorant of significant problems with employee satisfaction and the company's product/mission (not sure if this is purposeful of not). This needs to change! There's also a huge amount of pressure on middle managers and lower level employees to deliver value through improving products and thinking of new products to design, build, and sell. However, there's so much pressure that some pretty shaky ideas move up through the organization, while the tenuous nature of these ideas is hidden behind powerpoint slides and other charades. Finally, compensation and perks are just not satisfactory. Many employees complain of taking a big compensation hit when they moved to Opower. While this may have been okay in the early days when the company had start up value and a sole double bottom line mission, now that it's an established company and the equity isn't doing all that great, compensation needs to be commensurate with the caliber of people Opower is trying to hire.

Pros

- There are some very bright people - EE and conservation are critical societal goals

Cons

- Arrogant, dismissive attitude towards market and utility clients...and some colleagues sadly - Limited opportunity for professional development - Corrosive internal politics - Many of the leaders are very reactionary, play obvious favorites - Work life balance is poor