Look Beyond the Marketing - Product Designer Chani Employee Review

The benefits here speak for themselves, particularly the policies that mandate work-life balance. A seven-week office closure is nearly unheard of, but the founders enforce it because they understand that in a startup—and within our broader capitalist culture—it is far too easy to never pause. Research shows that "unlimited PTO" often fails because people feel they can't truly disconnect; however, when the entire office is closed, you are truly empowered to rest. Furthermore, the four-day work week is a vital resource for parents, providing the necessary time for life’s logistics that the weekend can't always accommodate. Beyond the schedule, I’ve seen leadership actively identify and address racial microaggressions in real-time. Following a large hiring surge, they took immediate action to remove individuals who were shifting the culture toward harm. They recognize that "performative DEI" and "performative allies" can be damaging, and they refuse to tolerate it. In my four years at CHANI, it has been the only environment where I haven't had to mask as a Black woman. I don’t have to perform or manage white egos. I can simply do my job and be judged solely on the quality of my work. Having side businesses and passions is actually encouraged here—you never have to hide them. We have team members who publish books and go on book tours, act in theater shows, run amazing content and podcast businesses, or do visuals for large music tours. No one is ever shamed or made to feel like they’ll be punished for having a life outside of work. It’s the ultimate benefit of working somewhere where you are judged on the WORK you produce, and the work alone.

As a startup with an aggressive time-off policy, the expectation is high productivity during those 32 hours. We actually calculated it once lol: when you combine the seven weeks of closure with the four-day work week, we only work about six months out of the year. Also because CHANI isn't VC-funded and operates on its own revenue, hiring is incredibly intentional. Every role is vital; there’s no room for "personality hires" who don't pull their weight. oh also It’s true that Q4 is always intense—I haven’t experienced a quiet one yet. You might feel the push toward burnout by December, but the trade-off is a full four-week break to completely reset before the new year.

It felt cool for a while to tell people I worked there - so many people know about the employee benefits or adore the app. I felt special being "picked" out of thousands of applicants. It feels amazing to land what seemed to be THE dream job. I also met some incredible people, who are still very much a part of my life.

If you're visiting this page after Chani's recent Heated Rivalry take, welcome! This job is too good to be true. Don't fall for any of it - not the benefits, not the documentary, not the social media personalities. I’ve discussed with my fellow CHANI survivors how similar the company’s pattern is to an abusive relationship. First, you’re love-bombed. They send you flowers on your first day of work! You can take menstrual leave! No one in your life can believe how good this job is! You stay in a 4 star hotel for the retreat! Finally, a job that treats you like a human being and sees your value. Then comes devaluation - this part truly sucks. You start questioning your competence, because others are doing so often and publicly. The dynamics shift, and suddenly every meeting is tense, with all cameras turned off and no one speaking. People are very, very mean to you and to each other and no one does anything about it. Managers and top leadership have unrealistic expectations, and do NOT want to hear anything other than “yes, can do.” You’re not sure who to trust, and you feel like something is going to blow up but you don’t know why or how or when. Then things do blow up, over and over. You’re blamed for things that aren’t your fault and are expected to take the fall time and time again. Teams are pushed to execute projects on insane timelines in order to launch things during the best astrology, regardless of what else is going on. Communication is an absolute mess, people are left out of meetings to be petty, and the lowest level staff are constantly scrambling to make up for the lack of support, consistency, and reliability from their managers. Gaslighting is happening left and right. Then you’re discarded. They laid off / fired a large percentage of their staff in the span of a few weeks. They gave each of us a nonsense reason for why we were being let go. To my knowledge, almost all of us had not received a performance review or formal feedback, so we were never given a chance to "correct course." The CEO & President have centered the mission of their work around empowering survivors of gender-based violence through economic justice. Having a job and healthcare is obviously a lifeline, especially for survivors, as well as for queer and trans folks and BIPOC and immigrants, especially under the current U.S. administration. The folks they laid off were survivors, queer, trans, BIPOC, and immigrants, who suddenly found themselves without a paycheck or healthcare. The least leadership could do is actually implement a reliable performance review system to communicate feedback so that improvements can be made before it gets to this point. Of course, it wasn’t actually about performance. It was about workplace politics. Anyone who pointed out “the emperor has no clothes” was removed. It turns out that having a 4 day work week and a personal wellness stipend can't actually make up for a hostile work environment, mind games, and abusive leaders. I cried every day at this job for many months. There are a few people who have been at the company for multiple years who continually get away with terrible behavior, while anyone who joins their team (and tries to seek support after experiencing the terrible behavior) is gone within the year. This kind of culture starts at the very top - may they reap exactly what they have sown.