Personio reviews

Think twice before joining — especially if you're counting on equity or job stability During my time at Personio, I witnessed significant issues that potential candidates should consider carefully. Equity compensation is misleading While equity is often presented as a meaningful part of the compensation package, in reality it holds little to no value. There are no clear plans for an IPO or acquisition, and internal valuation is disconnected from market realities. For most employees, shares will remain illiquid and worthless. Toxic management practices and poor treatment of employees Job security is virtually nonexistent. Layoffs are handled poorly and often without merit — people are let go due to team restructuring or being "in the wrong place at the wrong time," not based on performance. Some terminations led to legal challenges, with the company eventually paying fines, highlighting the questionable internal processes. Chaotic operations and lack of strategic direction Project management and operational planning are severely lacking. Roadmaps change without notice, and people are frequently shifted between teams and priorities, often right before performance evaluations. This results in unstable work conditions and makes career growth difficult. Career development depends heavily on where you're placed There is a notable divide between teams. Most meaningful product work happens in US-based teams, while others are often sidelined with limited opportunities for impact or growth. Unless you’re fortunate enough to land in one of the more well-supported teams, your time at Personio may stall your career. Disconnected and dysfunctional leadership Leadership is either unaware of the product’s actual challenges or chooses to ignore them. Their decisions often feel misaligned with both employee and customer needs, contributing to declining morale and, ultimately, the company’s declining valuation. Culture does not match the branding Personio projects a polished image of inclusivity and people-first values. However, the internal reality is starkly different. The treatment of employees during mass layoffs showed a lack of integrity, transparency, and accountability.

The company knows how to use the basic "start-up" terminology to lure new developers, pretending it is an agile start-up environment but in reality, it is a "traditional", bureaucratic company, disguising waterfall development by breaking it into 2-week chunks. During my interviews and offer proposal, everybody seemed really nice, helpful, and flexible about helping me as much as possible during my relocation to Germany but, as soon as the relocation started and I arrived in the country, the employee's posture changed completely and it was clear that they would do all they could to spend as little as possible to help me with that Most senior-level developers and product people just have a very superficial understanding of agile concepts (and some of them just treat it as bulls**t that the company needs to use to keep its "start-up vibe"). Developers are perceived only as "task takers" and are discouraged to have real participation in anything other than technical discussions. Seniority is also perceived only as how technically deep you are. The company is way more focused on what it needs from the engineers instead of looking into the person's aspirations for its career and then trying to match both, which often results in the company focusing (or trying to persuade) to move you into roles or to do something that you have no interest in. Career promotions are also few and sparse and they clearly delay it as much as possible, focusing on how long you've been without a promotion instead of looking at the employee's performance or if they should really be in that position. Not coincidentally, this is the least efficient company that I've ever worked for. The development cycle is really slow, simple features take several months (or sometimes more than a year for not-so-small features) to be developed and deployed and sometimes are already obsolete by the time it hits production. Touching legacy code or proposing anything different from what is usually done is a nightmare and usually generates endless meetings with several seniors/managers/leads that will refuse anything other than what they are used to. If you want just to code, be as far as possible from any conversation other than technical stuff, and don't want to develop any other skill than coding, you might fit here. Otherwise, I suggest you look for another company.