Lever’s go-to-market teams (Sales, Marketing, CS) have the highest attrition rates I’ve seen in 12+ years. Don't take my word — look at the data. On my Lever team (30 ppl total) we lost 44% the last 6 months — only 2 were involuntary.
Why are so many Leveroos leaving?
Sure, Lever's pay is usually lower than market (I received a 20% pay increase upon leaving, and have less responsibility/work). But the vast majority departed for reasons much more complicated. I'll try to simplify:
1) Lever’s business model is failing; they’re cash-strapped. Spend is high (even by tech standards) — paired with 7+ quarters of missed revenue targets. Even after repeatedly lowering quarterly goals, Lever’s unit economics are very very poor.
2) As a result, understandably, executive leadership has made increasingly panicked decisions: deferring all raises/ promos til cash-flow improves, rescinding candidate offers 1-2 days before candidates start, rushing to merge teams/consolidate without a plan or reason. All of which is understandable when you’re working for a struggling business.
But what ultimately got many to leave is 3) exec leadership has panicked to the point of compromised competency and integrity: rescinding promises made to employees about working arrangements, promotions, departmental changes; making brash but important decisions related to people's employment without using any data, going back on their word (regularly); throwing other employees under the bus and outwardly scape-goating. Worst of all is the blanket of tension and blame that ricochets across the office each day. I've seen executive-level leaders engaging in all-out rage-filled interactions towards subordinates with screaming, red-faced meetings containing abusive and unproductive verbal content — regularly and seemingly without aim (!!!!). I've never seen anything like it in my career before or after. At first it was unbelievable. And then, tragic that this has been normalized. Ultimately, it was realizing Lever’s panic-stricken work environment had crossed the line into all-out toxic (my partner and friends coming forth one by one with increasing concern), that ultimately caused me to leave. Most of my colleagues have echoed the same concerns: working at Lever was becoming damaging.
Not all teams share the same experience, and it’s not unanimously a bad decision to join Lever, or a company in this precarious financial situation. As anywhere, there are good executives/leaders, and great teams/pockets within Lever. But please do research beyond what’s written online to make an educated decision.
Here are some suggestions for those engaging in an interview process with Lever.
(A) Ask your interviewer (better-yet, ask ALL your interviewers):
- What is the department’s attrition rate?
- What is the specific team’s attrition rate? Why? (If your interviewer does not know, ask them to work it out with you, in the moment, over the past 6-9 months, by taking a quick tally of who left and how big the team was)
- Can you list why each of the last 3-4 people left, and how recently?
- What is the hardest thing facing the company right now? What are the consequences / risks of this?
- If your options were up for purchasing tomorrow, would you buy them? Walk me through your logic in detail.
- If you could change anything about Lever / working at Lever what would it be?
(B) And above all else: backchannel. backchannel. backchannel. Look up someone (2-3 someones!) on a team similar to yours that is no longer at Lever — there are plenty. Ask them to chat with you about their experience, I’m confident many of them would be happy to — Lever hires (mostly) lovely people! This way, you can enter the organization with a fuller picture and eyes wide open. Too many candidates get bait-and-switched by all the marketing noise.
Take care and stay woke, people. <3
