Smartsheet Reviews

Cons

Compared to other companies I have worked for, it is really hard to think of any cons. It has the stability of a mature company, with the perks of a growth company.

Cons

- The environment is generally fast paced so sometime things can get hectic and might not be the optimal environment for everyone
-401k program can be improved
-No tuition assistance program for continuing education

Cons

The fast-paced culture isn’t for everyone. You can’t just skate by at the company….you have to bring your A-game.

Cons

Growth brings need for process/system improvements

Cons

*beware politics within leadership that trickle down

Cons

I've been here over a year and I'm not feeling the downsides. Surely some leaders and teams are different, but I feel empowered and respected. Commuting to Bellevue sucks but the company pays $200/m for parking, commuting, or bus.

Cons

*Translucent middle-management sales leaders
*It's clear when management tries to make you quit so they don't have to pay severance
*Grudge-holding managers; not repairable
*Constrained promotion path
*Poor commission metrics
*Post-IPO, very disappointing all-around

Cons

If you're working with data, it might be an unending exercise in frustration.  Depending on your role, you aren't going to have access to data, definitions, or tools to help you be successful and you'll go through a maze of hoops just to get the materials you need to make reports that people aren't even going to look at more than once.  That's even if there's any data at all, because you might spend a lot of time making reports of a fictitious scenario that may or may not (probably not, if you are skeptical) play out that way, rendering your work useless.  So partially because of all this, there's a reasonable chance you won't learn anything because you won't ever have the chance to ask (or get answers to) the questions you want to make yourself better and more productive (the science side, the best practices side) because you're still on step 1, which is "acquire data that might not even exist".

Cons

Where to begin...

Tons of counterproductive inefficiencies within sales, especially in the SDR department. Managers creating work just for the sake of work, tons of meaningless rules and bloated procedures that only hinder reps and cause unneeded frustration. Other parts of sales have their own issues, but being an SDR at Smartsheet is really nothing but grunt work. Managers lie and manipulate constantly. The OTE that they dangle in front of you is unattainable for anyone who isn’t working 10+ hours per day, each and every day, yet they claim that work/life balance is great. Yeah right…

Managers lack both management skills and sales skills. They’re also petty, engage in destructive office politics and they are purely self serving. They take credit for all the good and pass all the bad directly onto reps. Top down, heavy-handed management instead of being supportive, helpful and understanding.

The quota is set unrealistically high and despite constant feedback and complaints, Management does absolutely nothing to address this. Instead, SDRs are blamed for having poor performance, even if they miss their number slightly and management uses this as leverage to hold back promotions, dock your pay and ultimately fire you. SDRs who are smart, helpful and good team members have been fired because of a this culture of unreasonable metrics. Extremely high quota means that some SDRs pass lots of low quality opportunities on to sales reps, which is double the amount of time and resources wasted by the company. The teams would benefit massively from a re-focus on generating quality business opportunities, instead of chasing unrealistic numbers for the sake of numbers. Typically the SDRs who win at this task are the same ones that become poor quality sales reps, once they are promoted for juking the stats and cooking the books.

Ongoing training and career development are absolutely nonexistent. You are simply there to grind away all day long doing grunt work and are given no time or resources for improving knowledge of the product, improving sales skills or exploring other career development options. You are chained to your desk the entire workday, mindlessly clicking buttons and made to feel bad when you miss your number, even when it comes down entirely to luck. They promise the world in terms of promotions, but delay, defer and deny. A year down the road, when you’re still stuck in the same crap, suddenly the great company they promised during your interviews doesn’t look so great after all.

Managers get to work from home all of the time but SDRs are not allowed to at all, even when your performing well.

CEO Mark Mader seems to have his heart in the right place and is a good leader, but I think he’s lost sight of what’s happening lower down in the organization as the company has grown and middle management is not being held accountable to the “values” that the company claims to hold. Quality oversight is lost as the company scales and it’s becoming just another generic, out-of-touch software company.

No 401K match

Cons

Having said all of that, most of the people that made Smartsheet a success and a great company to work for are gone. Now people are being hired into the organization above the real movers and shakers , causing many of them to leave and killing the culture. I still talk to lots of friends there. All areas of Smartsheet are declining. The really smart people are leaving and the company has completely lost its culture, with boot-licking and back-stabbing becoming more common. This is across mostly engineering and support, but I hear rumors from every department.