- Frat house college type culture. Can be fun sometimes but is mostly horribly juvenile and unprofessional. Can be very hard to work as a serious professional in this environment.
- Extreme lack of diversity on all counts. If you are white, extroverted, and come from a wealthy family, you will fit right in. If you are none of those things - good luck to you and your sanity.
- Still tries to act like a start up when there are now well over 1000 people. The lack of structure worked once, but now it feels very messy and too loose. A lot needs to be tightened up (in a way that doesn't lose the casual atmosphere altogether).
- Unqualified and inept management. It appears that once you have been at HubSpot for x many years you get promoted to management, no matter if you were a developer or a support 'engineer', which is an absolute nightmare for real professionals to work under.
- Unmet expectations. They do a great job marketing themselves to potential hires, saying how they are truly changing the world, how there is infinite opportunity in the company, how they are the best of the best, that it is harder to get into HubSpot than Yale, that culture and transparency is the #1 priority. Never in my life have I felt so duped. When you are done drinking the Kool-Aide and realize you have been had on all counts, you will feel extremely disheartened and disappointed.
- Unmet role expectations. I was sold on a position that was 100% different than what was offered. When it was time to get to work, my daily tasks were far below my skill set and offered no challenge.
- Too many young people and too much drinking. There are taps in the kitchen, and all big parties are heavily alcohol involved. Again, if you are a frat house type extroverted person, you will love it. if not (especially introverted developers) you will feel left out.
- Hidden HR Department. HR is deftly called "People Ops", and people are left in the dark about the support they can offer to employees. When I needed to reach out to HR I had to ask several people for who to contact because I had no idea how to find them. This is deeply troubling as many teams are rich with conflict and politics, and HR could help resolve this issues before they compound into bigger problems.
