Upside Business Travel Reviews

Pros

It's a rare gift to be able to work for and with people who you both like and respect. Leadership at Upside is comprised of quality human beings who are the most intelligent I have worked for. They are accessible and genuine.

Everyone is here because they truly want to be. Not everyone is built to thrive in this environment. But if you are, you will. There is a palpable energy.

Leadership and management here trust employees not only to do their jobs but also to take risks, and learn.

Often I find myself so engaged in what I am doing that I forget I am actually at "work." I think about work when I am not at work… not because I have to, but because I want to.

It is exciting to be a part of something that has grown so quickly in such a short time. It will be exciting to see what happens next.

As a designer with a storied career, I understand the importance of loving one's job, and I do.

Advice to Management

Continue to protect everything good that has been built here, especially the remarkable culture, which starts at the top.

Pros

Best co-workers around. Smart, engaging, enthusiastic, collaborative. Management values transparency and communicates early and often. While we go fast, we also take the time to self-reflect and optimize. Fantastic work environment if you're motivated.

Pros

Health benefits are great
Awesome company culture
Very diverse

Advice to Management

Always maintain the company culture!

Pros

- Extremely smart and driven co-workers
- An amazing product built from the ground up using microservices and a state-of-the-art technology stack
- Given ownership of problems immediately and no constraints for how to solve them
- New office space in Thomas Circle is amazing

Advice to Management

- Keep laser focused on the product and what our customers are saying about it
- Continue to be transparent and open about the direction of the company

Pros

The best people I've ever worked with were all here. No office jerks. Very little ego and amazing teams to work with. Decent work-life balance for a startup and some okay perks. Salaries were a bit higher than other places. I will always rank this as one of the best places I've ever worked. I miss everyone terribly and more than anything would just like to be back at work doing my job and helping move the company forward. CTO, COO/CFO were two of the most inspiring people I've ever worked with.

Advice to Management

You just fired all of your managers, you've got to fill that void somehow. Managers might seem like they're just in meetings all of the time, but they did a lot of important communication work for their teams. The people left need to figure out how to find room for people who are left to do that management work.

I think you made a lot of missteps when you did the layoff, from who you let go to how you executed it. For the sake of everyone left, I hope you guys figure it out. Morale is really low and current employees weren't given the resources they needed to cope with a third of their friends leaving. I hate hearing that from them and really want it to work out for them.

Finally, while OKRs should be a guide, I think that if you look back at the ones you set at the end of last year, you could easily see how you got into the position where you had to layoff a bunch of your staff. Distractions like WSJ and other projects crowded out the work engineering needed to do. Try to not let that happen again.

Pros

Some great people work here and you build connections that are very genuine. For the most part no "office jerks" and everyone is willing to help you out. Willing to start at a higher than typical entry level salary,not much higher but it's something. (Also not certain if this is still the case).

Advice to Management

Manage. There isn't much of that going on and there needs to be an understanding that everyone is not like everyone else; some might love the laissez faire approach, but the methods practiced here are is a little extreme. Also practice what you preach. Transparent? O.K. Give us transparency. Otherwise strike it from being one of your pillars. Figure out what the Upside Culture really is and put it into place. Lastly hear and process feedback from employees. They are genuinely trying to help boost the company but that falls pretty flat after constantly being ignored or told they are better suited elsewhere.

Pros

Well, things were alright while they lasted. Everyone was drinking the Kool-Aid, and then... Bam. Half of the personnel were let go. Massive waste of time, and disappointment.

Pros

-Amazing group of people. Incredibly talented team.
-Competitive pay
-Will give you a competitive edge in your career
-President, COO/CFO and CTO are inspiring leaders. Some great people work here.

Advice to Management

-Listen to your people. Be open to criticism. It will benefit of the company.

Pros

Start up culture. No formal hierarchy. Fast paced - working with cutting edge technology. Leadership team is very transparent with information - more so than any place I have ever worked before. Almost everyone is super passionate about the mission and comes to work every day ready to get after it. Nerf gun fights every Friday! Location, pay is good - they pay very well for top talent.

Advice to Management

Keep it up.

Pros

Upside is customer focused and has come a long way in the past year figuring out product-market fit. The team has handled the twists and turns well. Co-workers are welcoming and supportive even with the incredibly fast pace. Overall the energy is positive and infectious - especially since you get real ownership from day 1. Exciting to see the product incorporate more machine learning & AI to enhance the overall trip experience.

Advice to Management

Keep listening to customers & employees and acting on the feedback.