SyndicateRoom Reviews

Pros

Great team, fun and passionate

Cons

not very transparent culture is bad, CEO not easy to work with they dont care about people

Pros

Great at making everyone feel like they are important to the business. Keen to give lots of responsibility to even the newest employees.

Cons

Business still young, so many processes in flux, but that is true of all start-ups.

Pros

The people there are great. The middle management (COO, CIO, CTO) are supportive and innovative. The heirachy (up to the CEO) feels flat which means that ideas can be discussed and anyone at the company can be involved in discussions on topics they feel strongly about. The product, as a concept, is innovative and should do well within the market. Opportunities to be directly involved with leading industry... players.

Cons

There constantly feels like an underlying tension between the management and other employees, which can be a little uncomfortable. The CEO is controlling, to the point where specialists within the company can be overruled because he believes he is right. You hire specialists for a reason, to advise and work on their area of expertise. Compensation for the time and effort that the employees put in is poor. I... understand that the company is not in a position to pay the salary you would expect from the industry. However, the holiday allocation is the legal minimum, pension contributions are minimum and there are very few in work benefits. Employees put in a lot of overtime and are not fairly compensated. The product is great but the background tech isn't. Employees are constantly hitting walls and mistakes dealing with the system. The system is desperate for some investment into a different direction but this doesn't seem to be forthcoming. This is really preventing the company from scaling and is adding to the bad feeling from employees.

Advice to Management

You need to focus more on employees, there is a general bad feeling that could lead to high turn over rates. I believe the company recently brought in a small budget for fun days, which in general is a great idea, but on it's own seems like putting a plaster on a gunshot wound. Even if you can't pay your employees more, make them feel that you're making a real effort to improve their quality of life. There seems... to have been a lot of tech investment but put into the wrong place. The phrase 'flogging a dead horse' comes to mind. The system that is there is poor and, in my opinion, should be replaced rather than patched. The company has a great opportunity to do well but this system is limiting. New starters from the company (i.e the new COO) are really talented with great ideas. Please listen/ use these people effectively.

Pros

Company is doing well. Mostly a good collection of people. Chance for a nice payout if/when it makes an exit. Great experience and a lot more responsibility than you would have at a more established company. Portuguese treats every now and then.

Cons

Hectic/crazy culture typical of startups. People are constantly stressed and/or overworked, which creates a pretty nasty atmosphere. Low salary, especially considering location. At any other company, my workload would have been split between about three people, and each person would have earned several thousand more than I did at SR. They will pay you as little as they can get away with. The CEO puts a very low... price on talent, making it clear how little he values people. Very little guidance/support. 360 approach to PDRs where everybody rates each other leads to some pretty intense office politics and social anxiety. Office doesn't hold everyone, though they are apparently moving soon. Everything goes through comity. Highly inefficient. CEO doesn't trust anyone to make decisions for him. Everything has to go through him. Office culture of working overtime 'for the good of the company' with no compensation means that people who leave on time are made to feel bad. Most people work late into the night and over weekends. Terrible work/life balance.

Advice to Management

Start valuing and building up your employees, or you'll lose them. You've hired a lot of great people but you've not provided the environment for them to thrive because you work them into the ground with no recognition or reward. If you treat people like that, of course they're going to start underperforming. What do you expect?

Pros

The office culture is fantastic. Everyone is encouraged to think differently about what they do, why they do it, and how they do it. This culture creates an environment conducive to disruption which is needed as this fast growing startup is on the cutting edge of fintech.

Cons

People work hard and often times long hours. While the work is enjoyable and the team is amazing to be around, not everyone is cut out to work in the fast paced startup environment.

Advice to Management

Keep building an amazing product and an amazing team. Ability over experience seems to be the key to continuing to lead the industry.