Opower

"I've been with Opower for 3 years and while I love aspects of it, there are some major gender and racial issues. Senior leadership team is nearly all male and the attitude of many coworkers is one of constant, low-level dismissal. It also feels like the bar for women to be promoted is significantly higher than that of men. The cliche of women being promoted on performance while men are promoted on potential is appropriate, and this is contributing to the gender disparity in leadership. Some departments are doing better than others, but in general I wouldn't recommend the company to female connections without knowing who they would report to."

"The company talks about promoting gender equality but women are docked for things like more traditionally "female" communication styles when it comes to review time, while men who are blatantly rude, dominate conversations unnecessarily, and pretty clearly attach less weight to women's perspectives are praised."

"Opower has made an open commitment to gender equality and empowering women. This is great and I generally believe women and all people are treated fairly, however mid and upper-level management is very male-dominated and generally on the younger end (under 40). I believe there are unconscious biases that work against women, especially mid-career women who are experienced but have come in from the outside of the company. There are "circles of trust" that are hard to crack. There are mid-level women with far more expertise in specialty areas than their managers and senior leadership, but they are either not asked for input, or their input is not valued as highly as their male counterparts and/or those individuals who have been in the company for longer."

"All of senior management are male. The one senior manager who is female is a personal friend of one of the male senior managers. Her predecessor was fired without ceremony or explanation. Very few females will rise through the ranks at an equitable rate as their male counterparts, especially in male-dominated departments. Maternity leave is good- 4 months- but career growth is not."

"Management is very male-dominated. Maternity leave is only three weeks, after you use all your PTO and then your short term disability. Sad state of affairs, though in general, the company is aware of the problem. Remains to be seen if they do something to fix it."