Zest AI Reviews

Pros

Very appealing mission - helping with racial fairness of lending operations. This drew me to take role on Zest team. Great leadership - clear direction and well vocalized discussions of important. executive business policy available to all. COVID-19 policy = A+ Lots of opportunity for advancement and professional leadership on industry-changing topics. across the business, clear organizational level-setting. Making leaps and bounds of progress in new tech space. Happy, big-name customers excited about working with team. Incredibly high performing team across the board. Collaborative environment with cutting-edge product enhancement. Perks are FANG-esque: outstanding.

Cons

Not many. . . Most existing organizational issues have seen significant progress over last year with leadership effectively communicating changes. Not much room for introductory roles - the specificity of Zest AI's product, and importance of our product for customers requires higher-than-usual base expertise in your respective field, or the ability to quickly adapt and "speak the lingo". Under-performers are released fast across departments. While the leadership of each team is outstanding, there can be a knowledge gap for those who don't pick up processes quick. Already relatively diverse, especially for financial industry, but needs more people of color in leadership positions especially on the business side of house.

Pros

Cold Kombucha. If you don't like Kombucha then meh....

Cons

Total Toxic workplace dominated by unreliable, and unavailable senior Sales and Exec team. This company feels like a used car dealership that somehow stumbled across AI/ML and stitched together a slick sounding software. A stretch? This company was a Payday lender. Research their history its all there for the reading.

Pros

Smart people. Excellent technology. Good benefits.

Cons

Recent management change. New management is far less competent and has been cutting way back on benefits. Hiring standards have gone way down.

Pros

I was impressed with the company from the moment of my interview - super bottomed-up process that ensures only smart, driven and collaborative people are hired. As a result the culture here is upbeat and energetic. The business is poised for amazing growth. The company continues to hire top talent and great leaders to build momentum and best practices. I have a lot of autonomy and satisfaction in my job. Benefits are over the top.

Cons

The company has developed some amazing products but it is also experiencing some expected growing pain which requires our collective focus to build out better processes and improve efficiency.

Pros

Ability to work from home or office, choose your own hours, be a part of a new technology that provides loans to the "under-banked". Executives have mastered the art of raising capital, so there's no shortage of funds, no expense spared, for the most part. It's a fun atmosphere, almost like the excitement of certain Silicon Valley start-ups. The technology is brilliant, providing a new financial scoring system that far surpasses FICO.

Cons

If your position deals directly with clients / borrowers, you may have to deal with some pretty low level people that are trying to scam the system. The interest rates may be lower than payday loans, but not by much, so borrowers are paying a lot of interest which may raise some ethical questions.

Pros

The product is a good one. It's a weird space with attempting to help people, maneuvering around some really tough regulations (props to legal), and sharing a market with some very shady competitors. You cannot get better benefits in a startup. Douglas truly understands the importance of strong benefits in tech startup. Zest is competing against talent hogs like tech company's, financial institutions, & other startups that can afford to salary out their employees hence the great benefits package. The office environment is a really fun feel. Big open floor plan in the main work area and a handful of meet up spaces, bright colors and lots of windows, great location in the heart of Hollywood, space encourages community and communication, and the tech is constantly evolving. There are some really awesome gems (talent) there. They are hard workers that supply structure and really know what they are doing or that are fast learns that add immensely to the product.

Cons

Promotions are almost nonexistent and if you do get one it's not based off accomplishments and successes of projects but the personal relationships you hold the C-level. Holding on to bad apples even after it's acknowledged these employees are not pulling their weight, while taking full advantage of the great benefits. Some of these employees go out of their way to sabotage others trajectory, while others fly below the radar for as long as they can, wracking up the equity and free food. They are a liability in many ways. Morale is becoming terminal. The volatility of the product (to their credit, they can't control) and the wickedly political office environment can be completely exhausting. There tends to be a major business pivot every 3-4 months leaving the team deflated. Seems like the people that made Zest great are no longer there, not because they left for awesome opportunities but to escape the fatigue. Culture is the greatest deficit that Zest has. The culture that we had was magic. It allowed us to build relations between colleagues and customers. It improved communication and understanding of the mission/ goals and winning multiple "best places to work". The original culture has been deconstructed piece by piece with the churn of the original team.