Volusion Employee Reviews about "pto"

Cons

- poor outlook - the previous COO/CEO had poor forecasting and a history of not seeing a product through. - reactionary and mimic-based “innovation” - an older product with many limitations - lack of deep understanding of the commerce ecosystem - low pay - lack of role development unless self initiated and on your own.

Cons

Towards the end of 2015, the ex-CEO had become seemingly belligerent. Stories of him berating employees weren't uncommon, and firings seemed to happen on a whim. That has changed now for the most part, but from all appearances, executives are struggling with respect to the company's direction. Priorities seem to shift frequently, and there have been several organization-wide and departmental restructurings over the past half-year. It's almost as if upper management is experimenting to see what "sticks." Over the past few weeks, that shuffling has subsided, though I'm not convinced that that we've seen the last of it. The company is currently rolling out a paint job to the administrative section of the software that merchants use daily, but it's not being received well by the merchants. This is perhaps the most aggravating issue at the moment as it's putting a strain on the developers. Also, from what I've heard, developers are answering customer complaints on a UserVoice forum. Most developers I know aren't interested in corresponding with disgruntled customers. I'd discard that practice unless you're passive-aggressively trying to run off developers.

Cons

The looming fear of possibly being laid off/fired in what really is a small, almost start up like company competing with big dogs.

Cons

Red Flags: • Extremely-high turnover rate - This is particularly true for some positions. Positions that have left (on their own) in the past year include: 6 VPs/Directors, half the product team, some of the marketing team, half of sales management, half of finance, the entirety of Business Development, a fair amount of sales reps, several engineers, several project managers, and more. I can’t name specific titles (according to Glassdoor guidelines,) but know that these were many positions (about 30-40 people out of <200) across the entire company. Some people didn’t even make it a year! • Layoffs - Volusion lays people off EVERY YEAR, without fail. The new CEO believes in "freeing up" 10% of staff budgets every year, to make room for new hires. Sounds to me like he's got a budgeting problem. They just laid off the remainder of the product team, as well as several marketing, IT, sales, and client services. Last year they laid off about 30% of marketing, 30% of client services, 20% of engineering, and several each of Sales/Support reps. This leads to…. • Capacity/Workload Imbalances - Oftentimes, when someone leaves, is fired/laid off, etc. instead of backfilling the position, the responsibilities of that role get absorbed by teammates. One of the main reasons Volusion doesn’t backfill is because they can’t: when someone more senior/experienced leaves who has many responsibilities, Volusion can’t afford a new hire with the same qualifications. Not only does this cause capacity issues, but other employees are now overworking, while still earning the same pay. Eventually the overworked and now overqualified and underpaid employee will easily get the same job somewhere else for more appropriate pay and title. The real capacity issues, though, come from Volusion’s engineering department. These engineers are fantastic, so it’s a real shame they don’t have the support they need. The full time team headcount floats around <10% of the company, which for a company of ~200 (it’s hard to keep track of with all the layoffs), is not a lot. So, while the executive team creates loftier goals every year, and competitors continue to lap Volusion 100x over in terms of features/functionality/partnerships/integrations, Volusion relies on this very talented yet small group of engineers to keep the engine sputtering. Volusion does buy them donuts sometimes, so that makes up for it, right? Volusion boasts the term “work smarter not harder,” but in most cases at Volusion, small input does not equal expected large output (it’s a hard operations problem, I know.) Because of this... • Volusion hasn't released a full feature in over a year - Now, it depends how you define a “full feature,” but here, I’ll define it as “stable 90% of the time, available for all qualifying customers, can be used now on the platform/app catalog, and hasn’t been replaced by a new, similar feature with less functionality.” If you go by that definition…then yeah, nothing new has been released. Some MVP apps/features were released temporarily, only to have been taken off the platform because of stability issues, bugs, poor relationships with contract developers/vendors, or “it just plain ole don’t work.” Last year, Volusion increased prices on most of their licenses, sometimes doubling or more the monthly fee customers pay (so they can inflate their “growth” numbers.) To offset this, they promised customers a specific new feature, but unfortunately, do to capacity, shifting goals, and all-around general shadiness, that promise was not kept. • Poor Quality, Expensive, non-functioning Contractor Work - Volusion tends to outsource important features, apps, etc. to get them done quickly, and are shocked when they don’t turn out so well. In the past year, 3-4 different large apps/features/relationships have been shut down for various reasons including inability of Volusion to communicate, provide complete requirements, or meet contractual agreements (including paying the contractors). This leads to the issue above and... • Nepotism - Speaking of poor quality, expensive, or non-functioning contractor work, the employee handbook states “Volusion will not hire any close relative to any legal, finance, or HR position,” so it’s quite surprising that they still do. It also states that “relatives of anyone in a management position will not be hired into any position, even if reporting to another manager.” Contradiction is a common theme at Volusion when it comes to policies and the culture code. It seems the only way to get a contract gig (or a newly made C-Suite position) is to personally know the founder or CEO. • Founder Over-involvement - Speaking of, the founder emulates Elon Musk, but fails to execute. He says things like “Tesla sells cars without actually having cars” only, bro, Volusion isn’t selling Teslas. He started the company over 20 years ago, and has consistently gotten in the way. He was CEO, then he wasn’t, then he was again, and now he’s not again. He doesn’t even have a job title anymore except “Founder,” which means he gets to poke his nose into anything you’re doing at any given time, blow it up, and leave you to pick up the pieces so he can move onto the next project or person to bully. He mansplains a lot, and likes to put words in your mouth. You leave conversations by agreeing with him, except you don’t really know what you just agreed to. He likes to send Wikipedia articles or links to dictionary websites to explain phrases that are quite common. He went to a few management training classes, and he says some of the things you’re “supposed to say” as a manager, but his actions speak louder than words. And the fact that he has been removed from people management positions several times should scream. He is a walking contradiction of the company culture code that he wrote - specifically because he picks and chooses phrases to use against you, or your decisions. Ultimately, the final decision-making power comes down to him and the CEO, and if you have the “wrong answers” you will have to change them quickly, or prepare for the next round of layoffs.You have to wonder why so many people, especially upper management, have left recently. It’s hard to work for people who don’t respect your experience or role that THEY hired you for. • Lack of/unrealistic/shifting strategy & vision, impossible to execute - It’s hard to go into much detail here, since the overall vision/strategy/goals/”Mountains”(as they are now being called, which is just another word for...goals…) change every 3-6 months. This means that what Volusion builds, how they market, and how they sell changes at the same rate. Even if you meet your goals, you might not be safe from the layoffs. • Micromanagement and manipulation from Executives - you can basically copy and paste what was said about the Founder here, but also apply it to the CEO and some of the executive team, or whatever is left of it. • 3-4 Customers run the company - from a feature development perspective. So much money/work/effort is put into keeping these customers (most of which pay very little or nothing at all) on the Volusion platform(s). Most of the work spent making these customers happy is not scalable or repeatable (cc: Capacity & haven’t put out new features), so while Volusion saves the crown jewels, they spend even more money/effort begging or tricking other customers from leaving. If it were easier to switch platforms, most of the customers would have left by now. And since Volusion can’t seem to put parity features out fast enough, it’s only a matter of time.

Cons

Not enough relief for when you take PTO. Some managers leadership styles can be harsh. The pay is less competitive for a company as a whole.

Cons

Not necessarily a con to me, but some people could see it as one so i'll say it. That would be that Volusion is a smaller company and thus you are expected to wear multiple hats. Meaning yes, my dear readers, you actually have to work here. However, I look at this as an opportunity to expand my skill set and diversify my capabilities. Although you may wear many hats, your efforts will be frequently recognized and appreciated.

Cons

They have 3 platforms, which leads to internal confusion, envy, and a loss of identity. Material, the product, was born from a UI interaction idea. That's not enough to build a new product on, let alone a new company. Volusion, the product, is like Grandpa who has been put in the old folks home, and only a few relatives visit on occasion. Mozu was originally going to be the cool, new, modern replacement for the old legacy Volusion platform, but they hired architects and developers from Dell and let them go. They built the wrong thing, something not SMB. So the company decided to launch it it as their Enterprise platform. It was kind of an accident, and you know how most kids who are accidents turn out. At least one of the parents is bitter, and then there's divorce and alcoholism. There have many layoffs and quitters since I left. And since they implemented 'Unlimited PTO' and Work From Home, I hear the place is a ghost town. Lastly, the development area was an embarrassment. The open floor plan is noisy and trashy. Desks were very close together. It was an obstacle course. Old pants hang from the ceiling, and prints of 'Taco' go up the walls. Christmas decorations never come down. People use noise-cancelling ceiling panels to separate workspaces (making their own little forts). A life-sized cutout of Justin Beiber with a Sharpie mustache, a hoarding area with a trash-covered keg, weird furniture, hard liquor bottles and a depressing view of the parking lot complete the scene.

Cons

Lack of direction, constant changes without a chance for changes to show results.

Cons

The pay is bad, it was when I started a few years ago, it is pathetic now. They have increased the hire pay but the pay levels once you are hired are exactly the same. They have also begun ignoring those pay levels (one 5% raise ever) for only specific people so the whole department is being paid different amounts even though the people who got the pay increases did not have better performance or more seniority. While the pto benefits are nice, the medical benefits are mediocre at best. The platform is broken and not nice to work with, which means you deal with a lot angry customers who feel stuck. The sales team and account managers have no idea what they are talking about and will lie to maintain a customer, which you will then have to deal with. The only upside is that volume per person is low, though that will change soon because many people are leaving because they are removing their WFH policy. The upper management will lie to both you and the department generally. They promised pay increases, then when the department director left they deleted the promises and claimed they had never made them. They will claim they will hire new people, then refuse to once they see you can do the work in the meantime. They are also asking everyone to come back into the office despite massive pushback and the new Covid variant emerging, which is very irresponsible of them. This is after they hired people outside of Austin a month previously, which they are now about to fire with very little notice. Even after half the department said they would leave due to this, they are still insisting on going through with it. If you get hired here, you will have to deal with being overworked due to a massive shortage of staff and no experienced people to coach the new employees.