I'll be frank, I would not recommend working here at this time. - I Worked In the PaaS Operations Incident, Problem, & Change Management Space Relativity Employee Review

1.0
17 Aug 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Competitive pay and benefits. Lots of little perks. But most companies have the same or better.

Cons

First, you should be aware that, for most positions, you have to take and pass the RelativityOne certification test as a requirement of employment. As a new hire, they give you your first three weeks to study on your own and with other new hires. If you don't pass, they fire you and walk you out on the spot when you get your failed test results. I saw this happen to more that just a few of my co-new hires when I started. So be prepared to be back out looking for another job. Second, the building office space is dark because it is in an old small building living in the shadows of much bigger buildings. The courtyard space extends from the ground all the way to the top floors. This makes each floor a rectangular doughnut. So to get from one side of a floor to the other side, one has to go all the way around the building. This is very inefficient. The also makes the floor space cramped. The desks are back to back and practically on top of each other. Third (The rest of this review are my opinions which is based on my experience working here) I'll be frank, from my experience I would not recommend working here. In my first couple of months of working here, it became apparent that the company culture has a very "cult" like environment and professionally immature from the top down. People got thrown under the bus a lot, including myself. It was my perception and through confirmation in conversations with my peers, that the company has high turn over rate. One example, when I started I was told that I was the third person to attempt to hold my position in the past year. I worked there for eight months before I quit. I also experienced that there's no real work/life balance. The company became my life since I perceived that I was expected to work all the time. The operations, release and development groups, with which I worked, were all very stressed out. The perceived expectation is to work long hours, though this was not verbalized. I'm talking 12 to 14 hour days at times. There's also an unnecessarily short release cycle which led to a lot of incidents, caused a firefighting mentality in the teams and a lot development rework. This release cycle is something imposed by the CEO/founder. In my opinion, they are not the "Chicago SalesForce" that they think they are, nor are they like other PaaS companies. For example, the Relativity PaaS has a very small niche in the legal workflow software space.

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Relativity Response
5y
Thank you for sharing such thorough feedback on your experience working at Relativity and I’m sorry that your time at the company did not live up to expectations. What you outline in your feedback is not the environment we strive to create. I certainly appreciate your candor but did want to clarify a few points, especially around our Relativity Certified Administrator (RCA) exam and expectations of our talent and leaders. The RCA exam is meant to challenge those working on the product so they can capture a solid understanding of the platform early on in their roles. We do have a high pass rating for the exam and, of course, strive to make the pass rate 100% - all employees that are required to take the exam have more than one opportunity to pass it. We continuously evolve our support and programming for new hires in more technical roles, which we hope will better prepare them for the exam. We also highly encourage employees to share any study resources they feel are the most helpful to improve the overall experience. I agree that it’s difficult to watch talent move on to new opportunities, but we try our best to ensure they have positive experiences while they are here. Our business leaders look at our employee turnover rate often, which is quite low compared to industry benchmarks, and has continued to decrease over the last several months. We are looking to hire more employees across Relativity, particularly in departments like service delivery and engineering, to ensure that teams have the right amount of coverage for their work so they can take advantage of our unlimited vacation policy and ensure a healthier work-life balance. This year we also implemented a week-long company closure over the summer so all staff can recharge during this time in addition to their personal vacation time and our office closure in December. Regarding your observations around the behaviors of our leaders, we’ve had several new leaders join the organization within the last year and the entire leadership team is committed to fostering a more inclusive environment. We are aware that we have more work to do here and are continuing to make improvements as we grow and bring on more employees. Thank you again for your feedback. – Beth Clutterbuck, CHRO

Explore other reviews about Relativity

5.0
30 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

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Cons

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3.0
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Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great bennies. Loved the office in Chicago -- there was a gym upstairs, and it's in a very pretty building (see opening scene in "The Dark Knight Returns").

Cons

New CEO came in and laid off a bunch of people, including me. With that said, I talked my way into the job -- I was probably a little underqualified. However, I got laid off right when I had finally figured out the job. This was in 2023, mind you.

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