Toxic culture, micromanagement - Anonymous employee Personio Employee Review

1.0
2 Apr 2024
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good salary Work from home and remote working policy is good

Cons

- The most fake and toxic culture I have ever seen. Everyone acts nice but colleagues are climbing over each other to prove they are better than others due to fear of losing their jobs. Lots of back stabbing and gossip. - There's a strong micromanagement culture. Management lacks trust and every decision is controlled by many managers. So much time is spent on reporting to management. - Very inexperienced managers who only look out for themselves. They don't listen to feedback and just tell you what to do. - A high number of employees are being managed out or made redundant. If you make a mistake or voice your opinion you're likely to be put on a performance plan to push you out. - Management prefer waterfall approach and you need to define all requirements up front or you will be punished. - Very slow delivery. It takes forever to build basic features due to so many teams being involved and people don't know how to work together. - The product organization is very immature/inexperienced. You won't learn anything here if you're a junior product manager (just bad habits), and if you're experienced, you'll be frustrated by how poor things are. - Most people want to leave and the recent employee feedback is terrible but management don't care.

Explore other reviews about Personio

5.0
14 Oct 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

My coworkers are wonderful, I feel energized coming to work everyday

Cons

The company has had a lot of churn at Director+ levels, not a clear vision across the company

1.0
30 Oct 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Smart collaborative colleagues at the lower IC levels.

Cons

Personio is a dying company. The over-complexity of the company's technical systems is comical. Every attempt to simplify seems to lead to more complexity as things get half migrated and left to rot. Engineering leadership seems clueless and unable to present a clear plan-of-action to get things on track. Principal engineers force engineering time to be spent on silly projects that don't move the needle long-term. There is an overall aversion to taking the time to learn deeply about systems being used. Personio feels like a combination of all of the negatives of both a startup and a mature tech company, with none of the positives. The tech is half assed and duct taped together, but still somehow everything moves at a glacial pace. There is a mass shared delusion at the company that an IPO is in reach. No investor is going to buy this company's junk shares on the open market.

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