Leadership: Leadership truly has the best of intentions I do believe. However, their execution and general business acumen proves they can't back up their words. Nor do they hire individuals that can perform at the level needed. They have changed the way they do business almost yearly. Instead of being proactive they are reactive to everything and the burden falls on the employees. Instead of listening to their employees they continue doing whatever they feel is best with an abysmal track record for doing so. Leadership across all departments have surrounded themselves with individuals that will not challenge their thought process or guidance. They just go along with whatever leadership says blindly.
Culture: Typically, this is shared as a "pro" for GoCo. I see it fully as a con. Employees love expressing that it feels like "family". It absolutely is like family because your family members never listen to you when you offer advice and you are normally saving someone in your family from financial (or worse) ruin. Just like GoCo. The culture really is to just smile, say yes, and then when things start falling apart it falls on the employees instead of the leaders. If you want huge over the top parties weeks before laying people off because they can't afford payroll (saw this happen twice) then this is the place for you.
Collaboration: While they say collaboration is a core value, they really mean that they want you to feel like your opinion matters. Hence, it matters not. As I said above, leadership does not like being challenged and when they are they refuse to see other perspectives or consider how their decisions affect people that work for them. I have seen some really great people ran ragged just because they viewed it as "collaboration". It really is milking you dry until they don't see the value in you any longer.
Mass exodus: Anytime you see a large amount of people leaving a company it should be a red flag the precedes further investigation.
Typically, a large exodus is for two reasons:
1. The company is looking to grow and the individuals employed don't have the capacity/experience to do so. The company then forces those individuals out to make room for future high value talent.
2. The company CANNOT retain high value talent. Which is what has happened with GoCo over the last 2ish years. There have been so many talented individuals that when leaving, leadership tries fruitlessly to retain. Back to being proactive instead of reactive. Leadership doesn't understand that and just assumes they can find other high value talent for cheaper (GoCo doesn't pay well and never has). All the high value talent has left because THEY choose to seeing that the company is moving backwards and not meeting the expectations they set for themselves. They chose to not go down with the ship (or at least leave when the ship is still fully above water).
Bottom Line: GoCo is a tough place to be for any length of time and feel secure. Leadership won't stick to one idea long enough to see it play out. They keep making the same mistakes over and over again. They have no consequences but the people working under them do. It is selfish, careless, and irresponsible. If you plan on working for GoCo then expect constant change, missed promises from leadership, and anything but transparency (also a claimed core value). So the first time you are told something and that isn't followed through...I warned you and it won't be the last.
If you are hired for the sales team: expect to lose a large portion of your commissions due to Client Success incompetence. That coupled with constant change in process, compensation, co-workers.
If you are hired for the client success team: expect to work insane hours, asked to know everything about the product, and deal with clients that expect a level of flexibility the platform can't meet.
If you are hired for marketing: Expect the brunt of the expectations on your back. If marketing fails it is trickles down to the rest of the business and will be easy to have a target.
If you are hired for engineering/product: You are from Brazil and getting paid half of what a US dev gets paid so you will be happy and parrot back anything leadership wants you to drive home (or post on Glassdoor).
