Culture is not made out to be what it says - Software Engineer hyperexponential Employee Review

Thanks for your review and apologies in the delay in responding! To address the positive points first, it’s great that you enjoyed the freedom to work in the way you wanted and that you were able to make use of our training and development budget - this culture of learning is the very root of hyperexponential so this is great to read. To address the cons, it is fair to highlight that we have had quite a lot of hierarchy for our size but we don’t see this as uncommon for companies of our stage. We made some very experienced hires early on (which has been beneficial from both a business perspective and a knowledge sharing perspective for less experienced employees) and we have been consistently building out their respective teams. On balance the levels of hierarchy have reduced as we’ve grown, but there’s no doubt this has been a journey. We certainly take your point on board and this feedback is very useful as we continue to grow. Regarding our office culture, I’m sorry that you felt awkward. It would have been great if you’d raised this with your manager or any of your colleagues so that we could have supported you. Most of our team seem to really enjoy being in the office and it’s generally a very happy, lively place to be but there is no doubt we have our quiet days and busy days. Like many remote-hybrid companies, we’re still figuring out the best approach when it comes to balancing both office vibe and a team-friendly working setup so this feedback is again useful. Finally, to address your point about D&I and, within that, specifically your point about being asked during a hiring period to only source white male candidates because you are one - this does not make any sense so it is highly likely (if not certain) that this was a misunderstanding. Not only is there no logic to it, it also is the exact opposite of what we want to achieve as a business. Every hiring manager is tasked with building diverse, inclusive teams and the only targeted sourcing with regards to diversity is specifically to *increase* our levels of diversity. Everyone right up to our CEO contributes to this. To direct someone to only target white males would be the exact opposite of what everyone at hyperexponential is trying to do so it would actually be detrimental to our hiring efforts. Our Talent team also measure themselves when it comes to diversity in pipelines and outreach campaigns so once again this would only have a negative impact on what we are working hard to achieve. While we do feel this particular piece of feedback is highly likely to be a misunderstanding, we will definitely be conducting a full and thorough investigation to be sure. Continually raising awareness across the company for a topic as important is this is always a worthwhile endeavour. We’ll definitely be taking your feedback onboard and we’ll bear it all in mind as we continue to evolve as a business. We also hope that you have found a new company where you feel very comfortable and are thriving!