Nice people but team is not big enough - Software Developer TextNow Employee Review

2.0
Aug 30, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- my coworkers are generally great and work hard, eager to help out whenever I need it and accept help from me - my manager is newer to management but gives great advice and does whatever he can to address pain points that i have - we have a sr. director now that is a strong leader and actually seems to know what he's talking about - good w/l balance, can take time off pretty easily. Are told to take 1 day off per month for mental health - stronger focus on automation over the past year for deploys, tesitng etc. starting to reduce manual overhead - lots of smart people to learn from - lots of focus on the end-user and creating a good experience for them - a couple of opportunities a year to travel to head office or Mexico and meet in person

Cons

- we have a culture of "accept the challenge", which seems to mean say yes to everything, even if you know its not a good idea or really needs 3 people to do properly instead of 1 - we have almost no input from our product manager on what we should be working on, so its left to engineering to decide what our priority should be. projects are cancelled suddenly with no warning, then eng is held to the fire for why did we do this. No accountabililty from product. - constantly shifting org structures and rebrands that don't make much sense, at least one per year - a revolving door of senior leadership means we are always trying something new that will likely be abandoned in a couple months - a lot of firings over the past year, most deserved but no backfills so leaves the rest of us to pick up the slack. Also everyone kind of wondering whose next on the chopping block - we don't really have QA, management seems to wnat us to do all our own testing. I do test my own code, but I don't catch the same things a QA would, management doesn't understand that its a different skillset - codebase is old and difficult to update without unforeseen sideeffects, fixing bugs feels like whack-a-mole

Explore other reviews about TextNow

5.0
Aug 29, 2024
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Mission driven company, with no brilliant jerks policy.

Cons

Some constantly changing priorities cause swirl and inability to execute at times

1.0
Jun 18, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good Pay Decent benefits (used to be a lot better)

Cons

- Senior Leadership team has no idea what they are doing and make bad decision after bad decision. -No adherence to process, no standards and no accountability! - The company culture has completely tanked over the last 2 years, TextNow used to be a great place to work.

7
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TextNow Response
11mo
Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback. We're glad to hear pay and benefits meet your expectations, as we’re always working to ensure our total rewards remains strong. We’re truly sorry to hear that your experience at TextNow hasn’t matched your expectations. Especially if you’ve seen a shift in the culture you once valued. As you know, culture is something we take very seriously, with our Values Bootcamps, culture interviews and more. We know it requires ongoing attention, reflection, and effort from everyone, especially our leadership team. While we recognize that not every decision will land perfectly, we are committed to learning from both our wins and our missteps. We value open and honest feedback and are constantly working to improve processes, clarify standards, and build stronger accountability across the organization. We will continue evolving to create a place where people can do the best work of their careers.
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