What is the company culture like at Aiven?

They have a compelling multi-cloud offering.

The product lacks quality support, clear direction, and competitive pricing. The culture could be great, but leadership responds to unpredictability or volatility with micro-inspection and a "my way" mentality, filling your calendar with mind-numbing meetings.

Few years ago used to have fun culture, good benefits across markets and also talented people. But unfortunately this is in the past. So, folks who scored contracts before 2022 would still list those as benefits.

It took me a long time to put a finger on what is exactly wrong with this company. I'd say, Aiven surely struggles like any growth company who accepted a huge investment. The financial projection was way off charts and actual growth doesn't match the promised number. Investors get nervous, board is unhappy. This creates panic and tension in the C-level and afterwards all cascades down into complete chaos to the lower levels. This is my guess ofc, because I can't explain the chaos otherwise. Chaos looks like unbalanced workloads, some teams are burning out, others -- severely underutilized, contradicting requirements in product, overly optimistic sales targets, systematic internal mess with processes, unhappy colleagues across all departments complaining non-stop. This drains the energy dramatically. There was no clear guidance from upper managers who oftentimes didn't contribute at all and were just sitting on their hands. Tbh I never really understood why Aiven created an army of managers, directors and execs. This is a highly corporate vertical structure that is not needed in the 400ppl company. It would take you in some cases 5-6 levels of approvals for certain things, just ridiculous waste of time. Some of the most talented and loyal folks actually left, or worse - were laid off. Some of the most toxic and inefficient guys would be still there. So go figure who is responsible to keep talent. It definitely broke my professional heart to see folks who would really care about Aiven leaving. Many of those were actually women recently. As of now, majority of the leadership at Aiven are middle aged white males. Tells you something about the vibe.

Aiven offers the opportunity to join a fast paced team leading the way on focussed transformation for success. The opportunity for the Aiven platform and capabilities is huge and for maximising. Adding experience into and gaining experience in Aiven is constantly rewarding. This is an environment where you are supported to perform your role and reach realistic goals. The culture is threaded through the business, Openness, Courage and Ownership. These are demonstrated daily. Aiven takes the employee opinions very seriously and with polls, touch points and feedback sessions regularly. Workshops often take place to resolve. As well as company benefits Aiven supports individual learning and provides budget in addition to company trainings. Aiven stays true to full company culture and runs an annual company event where each function comes together over the space of a few days each year. Joining Aiven in 2023 has been a journey I am still enjoying. Work hard, play hard culture.

Gaining market share and awareness cannot come quick enough. Joining a company during a transformation can be hard on the people that have been here a long time. That said I mostly see people thrive thus far.

Good people, and great talent in parts of the organization

Lack of direction and clarity in the company, products being discontinued at short notice which negatively impacts the culture in the company, poor internal communication and unclear roles and responsibilities resulting in high employee turnover and churn,

I can't think of anything good about it.

I have never seen a company that does not function so well. The engineering team, the source of the company's strength, cannot produce competitive products, marketing is forced to create hype messages, internal sales cannot set new meetings and sales cannot hit a quota. The company is in a complete negative cycle and internal morale is low, resulting in widespread fraud.

Great company culture and opportunities

Pay wasn’t amazing but was fair

Great working culture and people

Focus only on revenue and not on people retention

Nice culture, opportunities to travel, company is growing and ambitious,

Nothing specific, although the company strategy can change quickly.

Flexible work setting Remote work (to some) Ok-ish salary (to some)

Absolute mess in leadership. The company has no real direction. Lots of hand waving and grand words that change all of the sudden. Weak top management, exec team just running politics. Terrible culture as a result of lack of vision and poor execution. Plenty of cargo cult and "lets just do something" without direction.

Exciting time to be at Aiven. There is tangible opportunity here. The culture has been a breath of fresh air. You work daily with supportive people that want to work together to scale the company for the next decade.

Nothing to note so far