No focus, inability to execute on a roadmap, and no culture of learning - Anonymous employee Medium Employee Review

1.0
10 Aug 2020
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- The mission of the company attracts some of the most thoughtful and caring engineers.

Cons

- Nothing major has been shipped in at least six months because the product org has been decimated, and no one knows how to get a team to execute. Substack is eating our lunch. - High attrition of people that have been at Medium for more than two years because there are no career growth opportunities or support from upper management. Constant reorgs and talking about how to organize without any end in sight. There's been a reorg promised since Coronavirus hit. - No progress on any initiative because there is little documentation or attention paid of what was tried and learned before. There lack of progress is because the same ideas get fails with similar prior results, then the company pivots to something else, and completely forgets what they tried. - No transparency on pay equity and pay bands. People Ops gets defensive and awkward when pushed for a resolution. - No realistic plan to achieve profitability. There are targets that sound nice and tell a good story, but are unachievable in the timeline they set out, and there’s no connection to what the engineers are working on. Medium will NOT IPO in 1-2 years. - Only lip service to DEI initiatives with no clear path for action and zero URM C-level executives in the 8 years the company has been around.

Explore other reviews about Medium

5.0
7 Aug 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Small teams, engineering driven Supportive, kind coworkers Fun offsites

Cons

Chaotic roadmaps with lack of focus and long term commitment

2.0
9 Mar 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Previously a great community. Some good writers. Good UX.

Cons

Huge pay cut January 2025, with 'hidden' reason (which was a decision to cut money to most writers). Nomination team and publication owners completely in the dark about decision to cut pay to writers Writers in the dark constantly emailing and asking what's going on. It was a horrible situation. Currently a mass exodus to Substack, with writers fed up and angry. Curation Team members are in the dark about how hard it is to be a nominator, but there's NO conversation between Curation Team and Nomination Team. One Curation team member was in the Medium Slack channel and was very defensive of the Medium team. Curation Team gets paid for their work. Nomination Team and pub editors may not get paid, but will work anyway and put work forward to try to get it boosted. Pub editors are doing a lot of free work and resentful. Culture of 'secrecy' and hierarchy is unhealthy. Why aren't the contract employees doing boost nomination invited to participate at offsites? Always feel like Medium is looking for ways to take any money away from writers they can. Medium may have a vision, but if they do, they aren't sharing it. It feels like an exclusive club and an us vs. them culture. Writers on Medium are not valued now. Some writers using AI have been paid thousands of dollars and chosen for features in the Staff Picks. Pubs are currently losing strength, and pub owners are disheartened and miserable.

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