Poor benefits, extra hours expected, not neurodivergent friendly - Software Engineer Neighbor Employee Review

2.0
14 Jun 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The only good thing I can say about Neighbor is that they are a startup. As a software engineer, that meant I was able to write visible code and have a real influence on the product.

Cons

The health benefits they offer are a joke. They touted their plans as broad and great coverage for any situation, etc. but basically all the options are catastrophic plans. I worked 40+ hours each week, and each week during my performance review or 1 on 1, I was repeatedly told that I wasn't giving enough, that I needed to work more, that my effort was mediocre at best. I stayed up once until around 11pm working on a high-priority task, and in my review that week I was told "We expect to see more of that." The CEO, founders, CTO, and many engineers I worked with were not neurodivergent accommodating. I have ADHD, which means I need to take breaks every now and again to stay motivated and productive. Any time this happened it seemed like I was abandoning the team to go on vacation to the Bahamas for a month. They love to micromanage, and are not willing to adopt or even entertain any style of work other than head down coding for 8-12 hours/day. They also don't employ any Project Managers, which means engineers are expected to do their own user and market research, create their own roadmaps, epics, stories, tasks, etc. Oh but don't let that encroach on your 12 hours of coding every day! I was told when I was hired that project management is an unskilled position, so the engineers are better off doing that work. They might as well have said "janitors are unskilled, so we expect you to empty the garbages, clean the toilets, and vacuum each night." Just because something doesn't require a fancy degree doesn't mean it's a useless position. When I joined most of the company was working remote due to COVID, but as soon as everyone had the chance to get vaccinated they required everyone to come back to the office. For some industries, this make sense. For a software team, the only reason for this is to better micromanage the developers.

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Neighbor Response
4y
Thank you for sharing. Wow, that's definitely not the employee experience we're seeking to build here at Neighbor. I recently joined as the VP of People and am working with the team on ways we can get even better. I know our CEO has an open door policy and I hope you took the time to share this feedback with him before you left Neighbor. If you do want to discuss more, please reach out to hr@neighbor.com. I'd love to discuss and learn how we can improve.

Explore other reviews about Neighbor

5.0
3 Jan 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Three reasons I love Neighbor: - All of my co-workers are simultaneously incredibly smart and down to earth. I am learning by osmosis by some of the brightest minds, and being around them every day just makes me want to be better. - We have leadership with integrity. They lead from the front and the best ideas win. - We help our hosts earn significant amounts of money and save our renters hundreds of dollars by disrupting the storage industry. It's a disruptive platform in a highly distributed market, so there's meaningful opportunities of growth here.

Cons

This is not the place to work if you're just looking for a "job" or something that is "chill." We hire A players.

3.0
13 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Everyone is super nice and willing to answer questions

Cons

Doesn't feel like I am learning a lot, and the work is slow and repetitive; every process on my team feels like it could be way faster if we better implemented AI. Feels easy.

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