If you’re reading a review here that lists no cons, it was created internally by the Sequoia talent team. If it seems fake, it is fake. They reach out to current employees to ask them to write a review and give them a template of what to write.
In my opinion, the most accurate cons have been listed in prior reviews that are deemed most helpful but I want to focus on a few ones that I personally experienced:
-There are no salary bands at Sequoia. I know for a fact I was making over $20k more than some of my peers with the same responsibilities. They make it a point to tell you not to talk about salaries to fellow team members. It comes down to how liked you are by management since your manager goes to the CEO for the compensation.
-Sleazy sales tactics. Their sales team doesn’t care about being accurate with the cost of the Sequoia product/services. They only care about winning the sale and will do anything necessary to win it. I have seen sales team members mess with numbers on presentations to make Sequoia seem more attractive against their competition. Very unprofessional and misleading.
Hypocrisy in management:
- Constant heat-checks on how I was feeling and conversations on how to make things better but no action was ever taken or considered
- I requested feedback from my managers on things to improve on, only for them to defer the question and eventually wait long enough to avoid the question entirely. I went a year with no real feedback from management.
- Constantly asked how to improve issues I encountered, when providing answers, none were acted upon.
- They claim one of their main goals is personal/professional development when in reality they have nothing in place for advancement
Lack of communication and transparency throughout teams and organization:
-I have seen multiple co-workers vanish into thin air to only be notified a week later that ‘they are no longer at Sequoia’. Some had been there 10+ years. Very disrespectful to people who gave a lot to the company. In most cases, they don’t even let the person giving notice to have 2 weeks, they make them leave the same day so they can’t tell any coworkers so they can spin the rhetoric however they want.
- I have seen positions be reduced to entry-level, data-entry positions and workloads be unfairly distributed to teams because other teams/managers of those teams refuse to pick up more responsibilities.
- I have seen new positions introduced to the organization that completely undermine supporting roles of teammates and managers act like its no big deal why people are frustrated.
- I have seen the vast majority of new hires come in with a lot of great energy and can-do attitude only to be burnt out in a few months because the resources aren’t there to support them nor are there any opportunities for growth.
If you really want to know how management is here do some research and search for former employees on LinkedIn and look at the timelines they were at Sequoia. Most are under 1-2 years because they figured out what Sequoia was all about, that being the complete opposite of what they preach. Reach out to them, they have no reason to mislead you if they aren’t there anymore. If you are joining a team with a newish manager, odds are they replaced the previous manager because they “do what leadership wants” and don’t have any freedom/decision making in that role because the directions are coming from the CEO
Their bonus structure set on garbage metrics that the majority of the teams don’t have control over. Mostly focused on sales goals that only the sales team has control over.
At the end of the day, Sequoia is just another shady broker in a shady industry that doesn’t value their “bottom-level” employees. They expect them to work 60+ hours a week during “growth” season to retain a client that only the producer/client service get compensated for retaining.
