There is no ability to move teams. There is a career growth ladder that’s largely a joke. Promotions are made through back room channels. If you’re an engineer without a CS degree, particularly if you’re a woman or POC, good luck finding people who are willing to give you the opportunity to grow (or an equal paycheck). There is no investment in growth, learning, or educational opportunities. Don’t expect to be able to join a team like Customer Support or Sales Engineering and move into Engineering! You’ll only be disappointed.
Management is a huge problem. There is an excessive number of managers, and many who are first time managers who run their teams without proper training and support. The managers who are good at their jobs typically juggle 2-3 teams at a time. The rest hold personal grudges and push out people who don’t think exactly like them.
There’s a lot of talk about being a DOer. Do the thing you want. Be the change you want to see. So there are a lot of motivated folks who work hard in their off hours to create programs that make the company look really good, but never get compensated for their time and efforts beyond a token thanks. So keep that in mind if you want to start a program within Twilio.
Team breakdown:
The Product department runs the show. R&D spends more time trying to churn out half-baked ideas than making thoughtful, careful decisions and investing in technical debt. Deployments take hours, sometimes even days. Engineering is so used to fire-fighting that there’s little chance to think ahead and invest wisely in technical decisions.
Marketing is constantly fire-fighting and trying to find its voice. After 8 years, the company still doesn’t have a consistent message, target audience, or way to describe what it does. There’s a high concentration of bros on one of the teams in Marketing.
HR is a mess and completely out of touch with the rest of the company’s needs.
Sales is filled mostly with bros, although the BDR team and Sales Engineering seem to be heading in the right direction.
Customer Support is an old boy’s club and everyone seems a little shellshocked at all times.
Facilites is a gem, a diamond in the rough.
If you’re remote, good luck! It’s not going to be an easy road and nobody will care about what you need in order to do your job.
The Executive team is a mixed bag. Jeff, the CEO, is very passionate, but he’s more interested in becoming the next Amazon instead of building a great Twilio. Lee is a great CFO and runs a tight ship in Finance. Roy is a big company executive in a small startup land. The two don’t mix very well.
Overall, the people are really great. The product is going places. But treat this place like any other job and don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s a family or they’ll invest in you for more than a year.
