|
private:bulbthings
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=1612964
|
Aug 14th, 2018 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
BulbThings
|
Full Stack Developer
|
London, England
|
|
Startup full of challenges
|
|
- Autonomy
- Architecture challenges, due to the amount of data managed by the platform
- Great technical stack
- Small but efficient and friendly team, making it easy to communicate and get things done
- Easy to take ownership of complete features
- Easy to chime in business discussions and challenge ideas even if not from the business team
- Remote (pro and con)
|
- Not much room for career growth due to the team size and budget
- Future of the company can be uncertain at some times (as every early stage startups), making it stressful and hard to imagine being settled there.
- Everyone is working remotely, it takes a specific mindset to be able to be efficient and communicate well, not for everyone. The high management invites the whole team in a great place a few times a year though, so it's nice for team building.
- Not so much guidance, and no time for it, juniors not welcome
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
0.0
|
4.0
|
4.0
|
4.0
|
3.0
|
3.0
|
4.0
|
|
1612964
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
BulbThings
|
|
|
|
private:bulbthings
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=1612964
|
Dec 5th, 2017 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
BulbThings
|
Developer
|
London, England
|
|
Startup with great potential
|
|
- BulbThings has great potential. It has the ability to partner with various companies from dongle providers to insurance companies, which will help to provide a great user experience.
- Big platform with lots of technical challenges
- Recently spent a lot of time updating legacy code and introducing new, better technologies
- Friendly and helpful team
- Remote and flexible working conditions
|
- Being a startup, there's a bit of a learning curve
- Sometimes pressure to meet deadline, but what company isn't like that
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
|
|
0.0
|
3.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
|
1612964
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
BulbThings
|
|
|
|
private:bulbthings
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=1612964
|
Nov 23rd, 2017 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
BulbThings
|
Growth Hacker
|
London, England
|
|
Just run!
|
|
Free coffee and nothing else
|
I wish I could give no start at all.
I joined Bulbthings at the end of June 2017. I was coming from a startup of around 30 people and I didn't mind working for a younger startup with around 10 employees. They presented me the company like a lovely environment, with team spirit and opportunities to grow.
Since the first day I joined I could feel something was wrong: we were all in a room an no one was talking for hours (I mean, seriously?). Even on Slack the communication within the team was miserable. Actually there was no team spirit at all.
I was preparing drafts, creating projects and pushed hard to show I was proactive, but I always had to beg for some feedback in order to proceed with next steps. No one was paying attention to my work and had the impression no one had a real urgency to grow the business (so weird for a startup, right?). No directions from the management, meetings with the rest of the team, etc.
At the end of my first month I didn't receive my salary and with me other 6 people. We didn't receive any official communication, I just had to tap on the shoulder of the CEO to ask about it. And here it started the beginning of the end: excuses, strange explanations, never written or public communications, etc.
We then realised they didn't pay the rent of the office and other invoices. Obviously we were all quite scarred.
After almost 2 months without salary I sent an email where I thanked the CEO for its last update about the situation, but made clear that if the salaries were not coming as per discussed we would have taken action to protect our interests. I signed with the names of all the people who didn't get paid upon agreement.
And guess what? I sent the email on Friday and on Monday the CEO took me in the room and told me it was better to interrupt our collaboration because I was not enough for the company.
It was just the biggest joke ever! During while other people were fired (before and after me).
Finally we all got paid but the people left in the company are few young developers that management need to keep up the activity.
As ex employee of Bulbthings I just beg you to run when you start hearing "Bulbthings".
Don't say you didn't know.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
|
|
6.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
|
1612964
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
1.0
|
|
|
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
BulbThings
|
|
|
|
private:bulbthings
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=1612964
|
Nov 22nd, 2017 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
BulbThings
|
|
United Kingdom
|
GBR
|
Early stage startup with a huge potential
|
|
- Complex and interesting B2B product with a huge potential
- Rich technology stack for developers to have fun
- Great opportunities are given to people who work hard for it: positions, roles & salaries
- Remote/flexible working conditions
- Great and funny team! (A lot of gifs sent through Slack)
|
- Like any early stage startup, a lot of pressure sometimes
- Remote working is not for everyone
- Everything is far from perfect, so you have to have a mindset for adventures like these
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
|
|
0.0
|
4.0
|
3.0
|
3.0
|
5.0
|
4.0
|
3.0
|
|
1612964
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
0.0
|
|
|
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
BulbThings
|
|
|
|
private:bulbthings
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=1612964
|
Sep 27th, 2017 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
BulbThings
|
|
United Kingdom
|
GBR
|
I'm glad I'm out of this so called company
|
|
- The team is usually/globally nice even if there's no real team spirit.
- The location is calm, near the O2, with options to have lunch and to make after work drinks.
The offices are also nice to work in.
- Good and free coffee.
- Remote work is useful.
|
- Forget about having a healthy life. You can try, but at some point, you will be blamed for it, and maybe eventually get fired because “not invested enough”; the “High Management” can ping you whenever they are in the mood. They like being unavailable during the day and they often start being active during the evenings and weekends. Forget about respect.
- The priorities are always changing according to the CEO/High Management’s mood. You’ll be asked to make long term plannings, but it will be pointless as they’ll change their minds all the time.
- They are not really good at managing money. Get ready to get your salary one month late, or better: never get the promised bonuses! As soon as they have an income, they’ll hire people, just to fire them 2 months later (or push them to resign) - basically, it’s like giving money to a kid who will spend it all in candies, and then get sick of it and throw them away.
- The company excels in trying to manipulate young employees/graduates. Experienced employees do not last long there, they either get fired (too hard to handle, too exigent, I guess…) or they resign (they understand).
- Huge lack of transparency regarding the company’s goals and situation. Employees get different versions according to the CEO’s will. Get ready to be considered as a naive fool.
- The salaries among the employees can be drastically different with no real reasons.
- Globally, bipolar and inefficient “High Management”.
- The facts and explanations given to the clients are often fake, wrong, big fat lies, and accompanied with crazy unrealistic deadlines and promises.
- Despite the huge efforts from the team the product remains unstable and full of regressions. There are no real QA processes (tests, defects management) - mainly because the CEO’s deadlines and wishes do not give enough time to properly handle a project lifecycle.
- There are no “One to one” and you won’t be able to have a smart chat with the boss to give feedbacks about how the company is managed. You can try, but you’re most likely to be personally targeted by the CEO afterwards, if she does not agree.
- Pitches are fake. There are no team decisions or team spirit. It’s all according to the CEO’s choices and mood!
- It’s BYOD, so if you’re laptop is not powerful enough… Good luck. The company is not paying for you - even if they might say they will.
- All of the above will be explained by the CEO/CPO with the simple sentence “This is a startup” and it, therefore, gives them the right to turn the company into a dictatorship.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
|
|
5.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
|
1612964
|
Open
|
- Take a step back, focus on having a stable product and stop adding new unrealistic goals for now.
- Stop spending your money foolishly.
- Get to know how to FULLY use your application before trying to sell it - so you can be aware of the struggle it is.
- Stop acting like a dictator and treat your employees like equal human beings.
- Stop being that bipolar, you can't be super friendly with people, and scream at them 2 hours later. (et then get back to super-friendly mood). People are not that naive.
Good luck.
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
0.0
|
|
|
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
BulbThings
|
|
|
|
private:bulbthings
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=1612964
|
Aug 20th, 2017 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
BulbThings
|
|
Poland
|
POL
|
Workplace you want to evade
|
|
- Full time remote work is allowed.
- Workplace is not so bad. Free coffee/tea at office kitchen is available. Great people at reception.
- Relative technology freedom.
|
Do you ever imagine about great work-life balance? Forget about it! - You are supposed to work extra hours for free. If you won’t do so you would be smashed to the ground. Forget about being rewarded or recognised. You would be only “rewarded” for not working extra hours. If you think that you would rest on holidays you may forget about it - they will ping you to help or do some work.
Management expectations are out of this world - Everything is expected to be done for yesterday. Forget about writing any test. There is none of them. Code is very poor quality. (Management) Consider number of features over quality of product. Product is unstable and vulnerable since that is not important “We will consider it later on”. How that kind of situation may happen when CEO was in the past IT Manager?!?
Clients and demo of product is more important that product itself - As described previously new features are consistently created and something that shouldn’t go to production is there. Important things said by employees are not even considered by them.
As a self proclaimed “start-up” they hire inexperienced people - Core team are people who was recently graduated from their university. People who doesn’t have experience and are expected to create great architecture and code WITHOUT BEING MENTORED BY CTO! CTO doesn’t exists there. He doesn’t code, show himself only on emergency situations, give his tasks to inexperienced people. “New architecture” is created by guy who is not sure if what he does is correct. Management can fire you without warning and told you that this is typical(!!!) for young start ups.
Rise quick, rise more, don’t get paid on time - If you think that you deserve a pay rise forget about it. People who deserve it never would get it. Promised yearly bonuses are just empty words since company doesn’t pay them. Management have clearly problems with cashflow since many times it didn’t paid on time. As a “first employee” you don’t get any company equity which is not typical for start ups.
Problems doesn’t exists - The Risk management doesn’t exists. There’s not workflow/process in case of any emergency. There’s no transparency with employees. If there’s any problem owners stay silent and don’t respond to you on Slack for “hard” questions. You have to get whole background from each employee and think twice if what they said you is truth or lie. They go problems with their lies and don’t remember what did they said to each employee.
Train your psychology - As told before you would be abused for not working extra hours, you may be abused for asking when your salary would be paid when it’s not on time or the most common for something you were supposed to do but you were not told about.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
|
|
5.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
|
1612964
|
Open
|
Leadership training - Methods you are using are from last century. It’s time to go to brand new school so you can learn how to manage people. Give more realistic deadlines.
Entrepreneur training - Take a lesson how to manage cashflow, who you should hire and how you should work on daily basic. You don’t have a start up mindset.
Mental health - It’s time to visit your closest psychologist. You abuse people too much and it’s not professional.
Salaries & Equity - Give salary increase to people that deserve it. Pay salaries on time. Pay promised bonuses. Give equity to your employees since it connect employees to the product they’re working on.
Employees - Listen your employees since they got great ideas which you doesn’t want to hear. Hire more experienced developers not interns or graduates. Don’t hire unneeded employees and do some of their works by yourselves. Change your CTO since he needs to be your development team guru not a ghost.
Technology - Repay your technology debt of wrongly hired people. Keep your infrastructure stable and paid.
Work-life balance - Don’t expect people to work more than 8 hours. They have friends & family life not like you.
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
0.0
|
|
|
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
BulbThings
|
|
|
|
private:bulbthings
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=1612964
|
Jul 30th, 2017 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
BulbThings
|
|
United Kingdom
|
GBR
|
I ran away
|
|
- Working remote
- Huge platform with a lot of technical challenges
|
- Horrible work-life balance. Everything has to be done for yesterday, always in a rush, always extra hours, sometimes even nights. Management expectations are out of reality for what could be a good product. This creates massive technical debt that is never paid, and affects productivity.
- Clients is only priority. Above employees, above the product. This, ironically, creates bad products for your clients.
- Infrastructure security or efficiency is never important, just get it done. This can create scalability or worse (security breach) problems in the future. Management does not seem to care about any future for the company.
- Old school management. No understanding of how technology works. No talent retainment, every developer is the same, dispensable, interchangeable. No understanding of Agile, no understanding of the importance of refactor or paying technical debt. No understanding that less hours and more motivation and freedom gives productivity, not long hours, frustration, shortcuts and threatening with consequences if deadlines are not met.
- Expectations are unrealistic, being the employees the ones to pay when those are not accomplished.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
|
|
5.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
2.0
|
2.0
|
1.0
|
|
1612964
|
Open
|
Leadership training. The leadership you're used to no longer works. Take care of your employees so they can take care of your clients. Get a real, hands-on CTO. Relax your expectations.
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
0.0
|
|
|
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
BulbThings
|
|
|
|
private:bulbthings
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=1612964
|
Jul 18th, 2017 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
BulbThings
|
Software Engineer
|
London, England
|
|
Nope Nope Nope
|
|
- Remote work possible
- Free coffee
- Relative tech freedom
|
- No work-life balance : extra hours are expected (evening, nights to early morning, weekends and expect to be constantly pinged during holidays), not payed nor somehow rewarded or even recognised.
- Management is abusive and lacks of fundamental communication skills (both verbal and written: sometimes I had the impression that English was a problem too). Every abuse is justified by something along the lines of "this is a startup: don't work for a startup if you're not tough enough"
- No transparency whatsoever, no clear roadmap or career path. Often direct requests to management (via mail, slack or even in person!) have been completely ignored (holidays, further details, time off etc). The feeling is being nano-managed when dealing with less important things and left alone when dealing with business critical matters.
- Employees are considered disposable and body-rentable. No respect for the workforce.
- The codebase is the result of overengineered rush, pressure and years of high turnover
- When you resign, prepare for the 'silence treatment'
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
|
|
4.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
2.0
|
1.0
|
|
1612964
|
Open
|
Listen to your employees and treat them as human beings.
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
1.0
|
|
|
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
BulbThings
|
|
|
|
private:bulbthings
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=1612964
|
Jul 9th, 2017 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
BulbThings
|
Devops
|
London, England
|
|
A good example of a toxic environment
|
|
The targeted software is interesting to develop, with a potentially wide range of concrete applications on the market.
Still some modern technologies employed.
|
The worst point in this company was clearly the management. A foreign team without positive experience in human resource, neither in development methodologies, trying to build in UK what failed twice in their country.
One self proclaimed expert, completely absent from the daily activities, imposing over complicated design decisions and numerous YAGNI violations.
One member of the management is hot tempered, driving employees by abusive language and threats.
Total contempt of your private life, excessive working hours, weekend included.
Despicable ambiance, high turnover.
A lot of poor quality and orphan code clearly written under pressure. Code metrics and agile techniques advertised to the customers, but not applied.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
|
|
4.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
2.0
|
2.0
|
1.0
|
|
1612964
|
Open
|
Seek psychological advices and/or start a medical therapy to learn respect toward employees as human beings.
Be honest with yourself and your flaws, then with your employees.
Start a less ambitious project, on a smaller scale.
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
BulbThings
|
|
|
|
private:bulbthings
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=1612964
|
May 1st, 2017 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
BulbThings
|
Developer
|
London, England
|
|
Not a company you want to be part of
|
|
- Workplace is not so bad. Located in North Greenwich, the area seems to be growing fast in regards of new technologies with startups all around the place. Offices are near the O2 stadium and Greenwich Park.
- As a Londoner, remote work is allowed (since half of the team members are based out of the UK) so you don't have to commute every day.
- People were kind and helpful with each other. Social interactions were made easy by a the daily meeting we had but also the out of working hours drinking session we used to have between colleagues. Some of whom I'm glad to still be in touch with.
|
- As a tech company, it has started with a poor codebase and very low consideration of best practises. The CTO is a ghost that hardly showed up even during the critical moment I experienced while I was there. His presence has improved while we started to get little money but well ... it tells a lot on his motivation and relevancy.
- Working crazy hours for virtually nothing as the platform never got traction eventually. Paying for acquiring one user at a time through Google or Linkedin app is not what I call having traction. I won't elaborate on business side of things though, I let this part on other potential reviewers.
- Stressful environment caused by a manager/boss that put you under extensive pressure the day before a "release" or during server failure itself caused by lacking development time. I'm pretty sure any developers could testify on this one.
- The bosses are dishonests and never hesitate to lure people with more perks and other benefits. I've even been promised a month bonus for having not been paid during more than a month. I'm still waiting for it. (Well not true ... I actually gave up thinking I would get a single penny).
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
|
|
7.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
2.0
|
2.0
|
1.0
|
|
1612964
|
Open
|
Stop squeezing people like they were some kind of stress ball. Also don't expect them to be as dedicated as you can be. As far as I remember you didn't offer any company share, did you ?
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
1.0
|
|
|
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
Jan 12th, 2021 08:28AM
|
BulbThings
|
|
|