Having looked through other reviews, I agree with incredibly honest nature of what has been told. Onfido is a young company which prides itself on being the next big innovation. From the beginning of the hiring process to the exit interview, the team are consistently being told about how we are 'The best and brightest and being hired here shows how special we truly are'
The honest truth of the matter is that whilst the majority of the hires are those who are incredibly well educated, we as operators (Specifically in the Customer Success/Operations team) are often undermined with laborious and mind numbing data entry that could be completed by someone who has simply completed their A-Levels.
Role and Career Progression:
The role is advertised as a position where you will operate as an operations team member, before cutting out your own niche within the company, whether it be via team progression or via cross placement (Operations to HR for example). However, only those who meet specific requirements are truly able to move.
So what are the specific requirements? It is not hard work or great ideas that get you moved. No, it is one of the following things:
- Threaten to leave the company after being frustrated in your current role
- Being best friends with one of the hiring managers (This is prevalent in Customer Success especially)
- Constantly blaming others for issues that occur so that not only are you 'Helping the SMT fix issues' but also by whistleblowing, you are seen as 'Team First'.
That also leads to the hilarious notion of a 'flat hierarchy', which apparently existed back when there were 50-60 people but now it is anything but. Yes, you can raise questions and have your opinions taken into consideration, but they consistently are not taken into consideration due to some in the SMT believing that if they did not come up with it, then it is not a good idea.
Salary:
This then leads to salary. £20k is ridiculously low within London for someone who is meant to be the 'cream of the crop'. Other firms offer far better packages, but Onfido's hiring team are brilliant at putting up smoke and mirrors with items such as Share Options, gym memberships (Which the majority of us never used), great career progression and a consistent iteration on 'You will be recognised for the work you do'.
Team:
The people that work at Onfido are fantastic and vibrant people, but there are of course some issues. There is constant whistleblowing at Onfido. The majority of issues that occur are often brought on by simple problems, but people tend to overblow it and don't want to take responsibility for the issues they created, often blaming someone else in the team or another team entirely. This is understandable considering most of us it was our first job out of university and so we were not mature enough to take responsibility and have to take the 'Not mad, just disappointed' speech you would often get from Line Managers. There are certain people in the team who were willing to step up to the plate and help fix these key issues but covering for some team members too long created a 'They will never learn if they do not fail' situation, which led to a decrease in efficiency.
Also, seeing engineers often being paid the most in the company by far, and then playing quite a few games of pool a day (There are a few real offenders here and I counted one team member play around 8 games in a day), followed by social chats and lengthy lunchbreaks, it is a real surprise that the platform is functioning.
Senior Management Team:
The C-Level guys are all excellent in their fields they are focussed on, and I honestly do not envy their responsibilities. However, the level below tends to get a bit murky. Often alot of those in positions of power are somehow unequipped to handle it appropriately and often panic in times of true adversity. I am of course only referring to those who I was on a day-to-day basis with but Senior Team members in our team were often fairly arrogant and had a problem when it came to not getting their way. Often times you would see us making suggestions on improvements and it would fall flat and would be completely disregarded simply because they believed they were superior.
Culture:
This section is honestly dependent on your personality. Onfido prides itself on its culture and it is based on very valid ideas. However, it is done in the most patronising and childish way possible. As one of the other reviews noted, Onfido uses animals as ways of expressing these qualities, such as pride in your work and working together. This is meant to make you work in the team members favour, with team managers saying 'Be more penguiny' when you are not contributing in the way you should be. Honestly, the worst part about it was the weekly 'Shout-Outs' that it would lead to. Often, these shout-outs were just hollow ego boosters. It got particularly bad when some employees were getting shout outs for 'Cleaning up the dishes in the kitchen', 'Making a great suggestion in a meeting' and the worst being 'For working hard in your job'. For some that works, but for myself and countless others, it is childish and often given to those who complain the most to make them feel happier about working here.
Relationships within Onfido:
This is the worst part. If you are a normal Joe Bloggs applying for a role, expect to go through rigorous (and often unnecessary) testing to prove your worth. However, if you are close with a Senior Team Member, then expect to coast through and be put at the top of the list. In customer success, alot of us grind each day to help the candidates we are working on, with the hope that we are able to progress into different areas of the business. However, nepotism has a real grip on Onfido, and certain team members are given preferential treatment and a fast track to more lucrative and powerful positions. Also, they are often given higher salaries and often do not take their responsibilities well, meaning they can coast and gain credit whilst others do the dirty work.
