Great People, Lackluster Leadership - Product Manager ValStream Employee Review

As another review aptly put: There are no positives at Valstream.

Before going into the red flags, which are so plentiful at this company that one could write an entire novel, allow me to explain my review headline. At the time of writing, there are 9 reviews for this company. 6 of said 9 reviews were posted in the span of just 10 days in April 2026. So, that clearly indicates something significant happened recently to bring this many employees to glassdoor to post how they feel about this company (bear in mind this is a startup or "scaleup" should I say with only 70ish people). However, if you look at just the dates of these 6 reviews, you'll quickly realise 3 of the reviews are fake positive reviews to counter the 3 real negative reviews that came before them. Look at the dates of the three 5 star reviews posted just before this review, they're all 30 April 2026. What are the odds that three 5 star reviews are posted on the exact same day, just after three 1 star reviews posted a couple of days earlier? Just look at the reviews themselves if you aren't convinced by their timing. They read like generic corporate slop from leadership just giving themselves a pat on the back by posting how good the product and the people are. I say this with such confidence because when you're someone who's worked in such a small company for this long, it's easy to tell who's who. If you still aren't convinced, just look at the job titles of the reviewers, they're either as generic as possible or it's the classic "Anonymous Employee". Firstly, I didn't even know we had any administrators at the company! Unless it's a cover for the HR department which makes sense given how they're defending the company in the cons section of their review by saying it's not the company's fault for having 2 rounds of redundancies in just 3 months! Secondly, the review from someone who's apparently in the engineer department is particularly funny to read since the person didn't bother clarifying what type of engineer they are. Anyone who works here can tell you we have software, data and QA engineers. No one is known as just an "engineer". Regardless, their pros section reads like generic corporate slop that doesn't actually tell you anything about working here. I mean, how cringey is it to describe a company as "dynamic". What does that even mean?? Not even going to bother with the fake review by the classic anonymous employee, but the obvious tell that this is a review from a leadership shill is the fact that they describe the product as "damn cool". Here's some advice to the so called leaders in the leadership team; if you're going to post fake 5 star reviews, at least make them as if they were written by real human beings who work here! I could go on, but I think you get the picture. The reason I wanted to point this out is so that no one who does their homework before even considering this company falls into the same trap as I and my fellow colleagues did. Look at the real reviews and you'll realise you need to avoid this company for the sake of your mental health. - 4 days in office, would be 5 days in office if leadership wasn't scared of everyone leaving. And mind you, this is the worst office I've worked in my entire career. Sometimes there wouldn't even be enough desks for people so you'd have to share a desk. Don't you just love leaving your comfortable home office to commute an hour to the office where you work on half a desk that you have to share since there's too many people for the tiny office that the company refuses to change despite constant complaints? Me too! - I cannot understate the levels of micromanagement at this company. It seems that the worse the business does commercially, leadership think it's because employees aren't working hard enough, so decide to become even stricter in micromanaging. You're not even allowed to sit away from your manager it's that bad. - You know it's bad when a well known employee in the office screams "F this company" in front of the whole office and then rage quits. Add that to the 2 rounds of redundancies in just 3 months, as well as multiple senior new joiners also rage quitting in like 2 weeks after joining because of the ridiculous office requirements. Need I say more? Conclusively, this company is not worth your time or effort. They treat people like numbers on a payroll ready to be deleted at the press of a button the moment the cost base, as leadership keep talking about, becomes too high. A couple of colleagues I spoke to said they joined ValStream due to unemployment or simply not being able to find a good job. So, unless you're absolutely desperate to put food on the table, avoid this company like the plague otherwise you'll regret it every single unfortunate day you have to work in this purgatory.

Free sandwich lunch on Wednesdays

Retention and workplace stability - High turnover including multiple senior hires leaving in just 2-3 weeks after joining due to the rigid hybrid policy of 4 days office a week. - Just after the announcement of there being no bonus or payrises, one senior employee who was one of the most popular people in the office, resigned abruptly by shouting the "F this company" and then stormed out of the office. This was followed by an all-staff meeting to address the situation where the CEO gave a vague reason for the employee leaving. Probation and performance management - I received no negative feedback during my initial probation period despite regularly asking for feedback. - At my probation review, probation was unexpectedly extended by one month based on concerns that had never previously been raised. - Weekly check-ins during the extension period were consistently positive, and I was told my performance had improved and that everything was on track. - I was terminated shortly afterward, with leadership citing productivity concerns that had not been communicated during the check-ins. - Decisions appeared to be made centrally by senior leadership regardless of feedback from direct managers. Productivity measurement - Productivity was evaluated using metrics such as commit counts, pull request timelines, and lines of code without clear context or agreed expectations. - Large or complex reviews were sometimes interpreted as slow delivery rather than thorough work. I was told my output was too slow because it took me a few days to close a pull request of over 10K lines of code that had 10+ comments made by an AI agent spanning the whole codebase, and not just my code. Hybrid working policy and fairness - The company requires 4 days per week in the office for staff. - Some employees had special arrangements allowing fewer in-office days, including fully remote roles, while others were required to attend 4 days office per week, even if most of their team was fully remote. - Flexible working requests was a privilege only given to those who had 6 months of service. - When I made a request for reduced in-office days based on the nature of my role and limited in-person collaboration requirements as most of my team was fully remote, the request was treated as a red flag during my probation review. - Leadership later announced a company-wide review of the hybrid policy that was expected to conclude within a 3 month timeframe, but no changes were implemented after several months. Office environment and facilities - The office has limited meeting space (4 meeting rooms with 3 of them only having a capacity for 3-4 people), resulting in most meetings being conducted on video calls despite staff being physically present in the office sitting right next to each other. - The open-plan workspace is frequently noisy, making calls and collaboration difficult. In almost every meeting someone would say "sorry about the background noise" or "can you hear me?". - On several occasions, meetings required participants to stand for up to an hour due to lack of seating. - Staff complained about lack of meeting rooms but were told to question if they really needed a meeting room for meetings or could they hold meetings in communal areas such as the sofas in the lobby due to limited room availability. - Maintenance and hygiene concerns were reported through internal surveys, including cleanliness issues and building condition concerns. There was mold on the office ceiling for months and the kitchen would often not have any clean cutlery to eat lunch with. - Despite multiple new engineering hires saying they prefer working on a macbook when asked their preference, they were still given cheaper Windows laptops to cut costs, which wasted several days troubleshooting project environments more suited for macOS which was being used by most of the engineers. Parking and commuting - There were insufficient parking spaces for staff, leading to congestion, double parking, and delays finding available spaces. - During my first week, the car park was full one day so after trying to find a space for an hour, I asked management what should I do and was told if the car park is full you can park in the commercial car park across the road as they have no ANPR cameras so you won't get fined for parking in the other company's car park and other employees have been doing it without issues so far. - Alternative options suggested included paying around £10 per day to use the train station's car park. - Punctuality expectations did not appear to account for these logistical challenges. If you arrived at the office on time but took 5 minutes to find a parking space and therefore were at your desk 5 minutes later, it would be considered as your fault for being late even though it's the company's lack of facilities that caused it. A member of senior leadership said even though their commute is under an hour they leave their home extra early at 7am just to arrive early enough before the car park gets full. - Leadership seem to sit near the office door and clock watch by noting what time employees come in and sit at their desk, despite saying they're not clock watchers but for optics you need to be at your desk on time. Annual leave and flexibility - The company required one week of notice per day of annual leave requested. - Requests for short-notice leave required detailed justification and management approval. - Shortly after requesting annual leave for the first time since I joined to support my spouse’s hospital appointments, my employment was terminated during probation despite receiving positive feedback in the preceding check-in. Employee benefits, compensation, and career progression - Compensation was below market rate for engineering roles, even for Reading's standards. - Benefits were limited to statutory minimum requirements, including pension and parental leave. Despite multiple complaints about this in company surveys, senior leadership deflected them by saying the company follows the UK government guidelines and at least you get something here, whereas in USA employees don't even get anything. - Employee feedback in surveys requesting improvements to benefits and working conditions did not result in any changes and were just met with vague empty promises with senior leadership saying increasing benefits increases our cost base so we cannot afford to do it at this time. - Career progression pathways were described by leadership as ad hoc rather than structured, with advancement dependent on business needs or timing rather than defined criteria. - Examples given by leadership suggested progression could require taking on responsibilities outside one's core role rather than achieving performance milestones within the role. - Career goal-setting processes were introduced, but it was communicated that achieving those goals would not necessarily translate into promotion or pay increases, so ended up being pointless admin that no one bothered doing. - The company communicated financial constraints that led to canceled bonuses, paused salary increases, and 5% of the workforce being made redundant.