Great potential, poor leadership - Producer GumRoad Employee Review

Free to give opinions. Great salary compared to any top company

Selects top Engineers in the world

Fully async, which is great for work-life balance. High annual salary (if you manage to last more than a month and make it to that annual mark lol). Sophisticated codebase and an amazing eye for sourcing talented engineers. Beautiful product that is really fun to work on!

First, if you're not okay with being spoken to like a literal piece of trash, you won't last long. Standing your ground doesn't fly, and as far as I could tell, there's no HR department to have your back. One thing this experience taught me is to be wary of companies whose CEO and Founder are the same. Remember that just because someone starts a company, doesn't mean they have the experience, skills, or higher education to actually do the role justice. The biggest con (literally seems like a hoax) is, unfortunately, their predatory recruitment process. There is a very high turnover, and here's why: After a little due diligence, they move you into a "paid trial period" which is 20 hours/week for 4-8 weeks. Many engineers seem to make it to the end of the trial period; the vast majority are let go seemingly with no feedback as to why. They can do this because they have an endless pipeline of eager recruits enticed by the large salary, low hours, and async/remote work environment. They have a few talented senior engineers who have managed to stick around for 3~4 years. While friendly enough, they do seem to have a big "shame" culture. If they had a motto, it would be "There is such a thing as stupid questions," so be wary of unnecessary interactions that may mess with their "async vibe." Those senior engineers manage the big projects, and everyone else is essentially picking up the slack (via tasks in an Icebox on Notion). Overall, it's fun as long as you manage your expectations. From my perspective, they don't appear to be earnestly hiring for full-time, as they may advertise. Treat it as a "side hustle" of sorts, decent money, manageable work, for about a month or two. No matter your experience, no matter how many FAANG companies you've worked at, no matter how many companies you've started and sold, expect to last a month and anything else is a happy bonus! For your own self-worth, I truly wouldn't recommend it to a friend that I care about. But, as long as all your eggs aren't in this basket, I don't think it will be a complete waste of time.