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      Side

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      Side Reviews

      3.3

      47% would recommend to a friend

      (229 total reviews)
      avatar

      Guy Gal

      59% approve of CEO

      41% positive business outlook

      Ratings by category

      3.7

      Diversity and inclusion

      3.6

      Work/Life balance

      3.4

      Compensation and benefits

      3.2

      Culture and values

      3.0

      Career opportunities

      2.9

      Senior management

      Side has an employee rating of 3.3 out of 5 stars, based on 229 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Side employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Real estate industry (3.8 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      229 reviews
      2.0
      16 Sept 2019

      Big dreams, but management has to got to get it together to get there.

      Anonymous
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      - Smart and dedicated people work here - really enjoy working with many folks on staff! - Offices are conveniently located in SoMa - Big dreams for helping out those in the real estate industry can be infectious - No work day is the same!

      Cons

      - The amount of churn matches no other workplace I've ever been at! There is no communication with team when people are fired or leave (oh yeah, firings happen often), people are just gone. It creates a culture of fear, and people are on edge about it. - Hard work is not rewarded with pay raises or promotions - just more hard work. Burn out is very real here. - The leadership says they are about "transparency", however they get mad when you question reasons why things are happening. There is nothing transparent about the way they run business. - Benefits are nothing to brag about. Salaries are WAY sub-par for SF, health insurance is a joke (HSA is only option, and initial coverage isn't even fully paid by employer), and they are understaffed because they wait until you are ready to rage quit to hire new employees. It's mind-boggling. - This is not a real tech start-up; this is a real estate brokerage. Do not expect start-up things like snacks, super forward tech (other than a standing desk + macbook), or even headphones to get work done in an open office environment. You won't get it. - Loyalty to leadership is how you move forward in this company, not talent, insight, or good ideas. - C-level team is sadly not self-aware, nor seemingly interested in becoming so; the levels of narcissism can be simply astounding. They blame everyone else but themselves for why people choose to leave, but forget to remember that, a) people leave managers, not companies, and b) it's necessary to have growth and compensation talks to keep employees engaged.

      avatar
      Side Response
      6y
      Thank you for your feedback, and we appreciate that you’re on board with the big dreams we have. With the pace of change in a high-growth company, communication is not always perfect, but we are working to make it better. It is important to us that our team is transparent and filters communications out to the entire company. This is a very hard thing to do well but it is something that we are committed to, and your feedback is important to us. As far as salary, we statistically pay above market and mark salaries to compensation data to ensure this is the case. The same goes for benefits. We would appreciate hearing more about your concerns, so we can continue to improve things. Please feel free to reach out to me directly. Thanks again for your feedback.
      2.0
      26 Jul 2022

      Don't Bother!

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      When the company was going through a period of growth past year, there were pros such as culture, diversity, upward mobility, but, unfortunately, it stops there.

      Cons

      Since the beginning of the year, we've learned that Management grossly mismanaged their finances, spending millions over budget last year. The CEO also started the year by telling employees they can leave if they're not satisfied or can't keep up with demand. Expect to get your head bitten off if you ask about 401k matching. Teams are nearly impossible to collaborate with because everyone is told to push back and communication is so terrible. The C-Suite is a nightmare. All of them are narcissists with no leadership skills whatsoever. The broker is team is essentially asked to exploit any loophole in the industry they can find. Compliance is a joke to them. Prepare to be gaslit if you speak up. The People Ops team is grossly negligent. If you go to them for help, they do nothing. I've never worked for a company that promises so much and delivers on nothing. Management cares only about the agents they expect to make money off of, and because they're a tech startup, they're quick to make excuses and sweep things under the rug. Truth be told, the tech isn't good, and most of our hiring power goes to people who have no background or understanding of real estate.

      avatar
      Side Response
      3y
      Thank you for sharing your feedback. To clarify, the organizational changes made earlier this year were not financial in nature. They were made to slow down and get organized for sustainable long term growth. In 2021, demand for our product led us to enter new markets at a rapid pace. As a result, we hired too quickly, slowing down our ability to serve our agent partners in the best way possible. We do recognize that not everyone who becomes an inSider will feel like the mission and/or the opportunity is a great fit for them. That is why we provide a generous severance for anyone who wants to leave. We have been very open about this policy for some time as it provides people with an easier transition when it comes to finding their next adventure. As for compliance issues – We put a tremendous amount of focus on compliance in order to support our partners. It is our legal duty from a brokerage perspective to do so. We monitor this closely and have not had any issues since the company’s inception. It sounds like you have had some experiences that have left you feeling like we do not care about our inSiders. I am so sorry that you feel this way. Whether true or not, perception is reality so we take this feedback very seriously. I hope you will come forward with specific examples so that we can address them head on. Glenn Elliott Senior Director, People and Places
      1.0
      25 Oct 2019

      I would give NEGATIVE stars if I could

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      -Flexibility to work remotely. -There were some smart, experienced team members but the majority of them quit the company. -Everyone gets a new MacBook and Patagonia sweater during onboarding. -The industrial office space in SoMa has air conditioning.

      Cons

      It's hard to distill all that I have witnessed within this organization. Never in my life have I seen so much toxicity mixed with arrogant incompetence and lack of governance. Senior leadership abuses power by bullying, harassing, or threatening those whom they do not like on a daily and weekly basis. Senior leadership also openly trash talks employees who have left the organization, both internally and externally (to clients). There is no real technology product. Employees are left to clean up the mess and cobble together something that resembles a product or service that was over-promised during the sales process. This could be because the engineering staff lack experience as recent bootcamp graduates. There is zero accountability and the engineering staff has no respect for the customer. If you are to work at this company, then know that you are not working at a technology company and very little of what you will do would be considered transferrable to other roles or industries. Choose wisely.

      avatar
      Side Response
      6y
      Thanks for your feedback, and it’s great to hear that you appreciated the flexibility to work remote, our smart team members. Managing a high-growth company doesn’t come without its challenges, including building and staffing the organization with the right team members. We are fortunate to be able to say that our company is powered by amazingly smart and caring people with long term tenures. We do take your feedback, and we are constantly looking to improve. We are very much an engineering company that has developed highly proprietary software that is backed by some of the most sophisticated institutional tech funds in the world. We would appreciate hearing more about your concerns, so we can continue to improve things. Please feel free to reach out to me directly. Thanks again for your feedback.
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