Disappointing - Anonymous employee Frame.io Employee Review

Great company to work for.

None that come to mind

Although I think the cons outweigh the pros here, there are many legitimately good aspects of Frame.io. And it's a shame the cons are so strong, because Frame does have the potential to be a truly great place to work. **Great Product** - The core product has very good market fit, and had it from early on. It solves a real need and is loved by users across video domains. It's really invigorating working on something that is useful to an engaged user base. **Exciting Domain** - The video production world is fascinating and there's plenty of opportunity to learn about it at Frame. **Growth Opportunity** - As the startup cliche goes, there's a lot of room to own a variety of technical tasks and learn from those projects. I grew in my career more at Frame than anywhere else yet. This definitely depends on your level of seniority and demographic (i.e. it's easier to get by if you're a cis white man). But, if you're looking for a job where you can contribute to varying projects across the stack with minimal red tape, Frame might be the spot for you. **Great People Overall** - Frame is full of talented, well intentioned people. This is especially true at the IC level. But there have also been several excellent recent hires at the L1 and L2 management levels (Manager and Director) in engineering who have real power to develop a great engineering culture. I learned a lot from several of my coworkers and managers during my time at the company. Many are now close friends that I will stay in touch with beyond my time working there. I wish all these people well and hope they are able to make a positive impact in their lanes, despite the cons highlighted below.

**Terrible CEO** - As other reviews have highlighted, the number one problem at Frame is the CEO. He deserves credit for his intuition of the video production industry and for bringing an impactful product to market. But he is way out of his depth running a mid-sized, Series C technology startup. He exudes an absolute disdain for process and the minutiae of running a technology company. He regularly undermines product and sales strategies with ad hoc directives and "spot teams" isolated from the rest of the company. More than anything, he seems driven by the image of being a successful CEO. It seems as if he is surrounded by "yes men" who cater to his wishes and then fires those in the C-level that don't. He has served as de facto Chief Product Officer since firing the last one in late 2018, and uses this role to micromanage the work of the design and engineering teams. Managers and directors in the Product org seem to spend a lot of time defending their teams from intrusion by the CEO's misguided leadership. Some do this well, others struggle and simply pass the stress of the CEO's varying demands onto the ICs themselves. He lacks a commanding authority, since so many employees at the company are jaded by his toxic behavior and struggle to trust him further. He loves to talk about how he means well, and he probably truly does, but things are so difficult it really does not matter. **Beware Of Burnout** - The company glamorizes a culture of overwork. People who work long hours are applauded in public forums, setting a precedent of what is expected. Deadlines are often unnecessarily tight, leading people to work these long hours to deliver in time. This has all gotten worse in 2020 with the move to permanent remote work due to the pandemic. The company has done little to encourage employee wellness in the face of an unprecedented public health crisis, instead asking people to hustle even harder. The issue of burnout has been repeatedly raised in company all hands in the latter half of 2020. Each time, leadership pushes the burden back onto the individual with such missives as "we have unlimited vacation so please use it". However, in turn, many people are discouraged both directly and indirectly of using such benefits to prevent burnout. One executive said in a September all hands, verbatim, "now is not the time to take vacation", in reference to the remainder of the 2020 calendar year. Good luck surviving more than 2 years at this company—very very few do! **Faltering Product Strategy** - The company has reached an inflection point: it is no longer the upstart entrant with a novel product. Instead, it is established with a mature SaaS offering. The company seems to be struggling to develop a strategy for its next stage. The CEO and executive leadership have some fantastic pitches for the next big bets, but those ideas are not being translated into a cohesive project timeline. Current projects feel overly ambitious and indefinite in scope (i.e. no end in sight). In addition, teams on the product organization are understaffed and severely isolated from one another. Certain teams that should be working together instead compete for resources. Everything feels like a mess that somehow manages to get along. It has always been this way, but it's becoming less tenable as the company grows in size. This is the one con where real progress could be made. The company has hired many solid leaders in the product org that can make real change here. Simply hiring even more will help address the lack of staffing.