Interesting product, poor culture, worse leadership - Anonymous employee Deepgram Employee Review

2.0
25 Oct 2022
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

— Great benefits, including excellent health insurance — Excellent pay — Unlimited PTO, flexible schedule and working hours

Cons

— Incredibly poor communication: I worked on massive, important projects at Deepgram and never had full context about what was happening or why. Even when the projects wrapped up, I still didn't know what the goals of the project were, or why it was so rushed. All I know is how much it burnt out the employees being asked to rush it. — Toxic culture: I truly believe Deepgram thinks it's building a company with a good culture, but they're wrong. The culture encourages calling people out, often quite rudely, on public Slack channels, which is explained as "just asking questions" and "part of how we work". One other example: while people from several different departments were working extended hours to complete a project on arbitrarily short deadlines, leadership was posting in Slack about how they were taking extended vacations, encouraging everyone else to do the same. How are people supposed to take vacations if they're being forced to work excessive hours to complete projects on unreasonable deadlines? — Complete lack of leadership: The company has a "let people discuss and figure things out" mentality, but that simply doesn't work with a company this large—and, let's face it, at Deepgram the CEO is going to show up and tell you you're doing it wrong anyway, so all of the discussion and negotiation doesn't actually matter in the end. — Termination-happy: I've never worked at a company this small that fired so many people while I worked there.

Explore other reviews about Deepgram

5.0
15 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great culture, lots of intellectual research, gratifying work in voice model/agent space

Cons

Hours can be long sometimes

2.0
21 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Deepgram has a great product with great market share and great finances. They are well positioned to continue to dominate the voice market, the product really works and the tech is strong. Many ICs are some of the smartest people you will ever meet and there are many wonderful people that contribute to a strong culture despite leadership.

Cons

Nepotism, sexism, and racism are quite deeply ingrained in the company culture meaning some people are given high titles and praise while you pulling their weight, while others work constantly and very effectively only to see little success. The people and the loyalty they feel to the company and each other is the company's greatest asset and yet leadership does not recognize this. Many people feel undervalued and unappreciated despite contributing to major deals, working around the clock, or being the hero on a major project. Many people have developed serious health issues due to the stress of working for Deepgram.

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