account executive

software engineer

customer success manager

senior software engineer

client specialist

Top Hat

Truly a great product. Something you can believe in and something I'm sure will do well if they can fix the internal problems. Good culture overall, but unfortunately there are too many negative aspects that overshadow this after some time. 

OTE is very misleading for most of the sales reps and comp plans change multiple times per year. 

Must be willing to cold call for hours and be resilient to rejection from professors. Decent work life balance depending which sales team you are on. Some are required to travel a ton  to the states (50-60%). 

VERY high turnover. Sink or swim environment and most people don't last. Qualified reps come in and burn out and quit, or get fired. Constant gun to your head mentality. Threaten reps with performance improvement plans so they can easily fire them.

No real career growth - they give you a new title, with the same duties, much bigger quota, and more stress. Extremely unfair territory distribution and blatant favouritism is seen across all sales teams.

A simple request may take weeks to get approval since everything still goes through the CEO. Behaviour of the CEO can, at its worst, be completely unprofessional and akin to bullying. 

Overall it could end up being a good stepping stone for some, but overall it's not worth the BS. Find a company that will nurture their reps and strive to make them better, not scare them with PIPs and and unattainable quotas. Go somewhere where you are set up for success!

Top Hat is an education-tech SaaS company selling to professors across North America.

Would estimate the majority of the company to be new graduates and individuals in their 20’s or early 30’s. This includes much of mid-level management, who find themselves in positions without any genuine experience or expertise other than having grown with the start-up, and the result of this is mostly micromanagement and poor leadership practices.

A high-pressure, high-turnover model is also a part of the company culture. The work-day is intense, with a perpetual focus on metrics and quotas and where failure to meet mostly unrealistic and arbitrary targets is often met with punitive consequences. Job security always feels threatened. Work-life balance not always easy to manage.

Any training opportunities were focused solely on company processes and improving the efficiency of mostly clerical tasks, which unfortunately did not really provide many real opportunities for professional development or career growth. 

Work in Customer Service was akin to a call centre—providing technical and educational support to clients, but also requiring you to promote/retain sales and cold call as well. Compensation is low, but can grow slightly with performance incentives. Unfortunately, income gains are generally offset by longer hours and unpaid overtime (in Ontario “information technology professionals” are exempt from overtime pay) which apparently includes customer services reps.

As others have mentioned, Top Hat is place to gain some experience with some great people, but likely not to build or expect a lasting career.

Pros: 
REALLY smart people
People are bought into the mission - people here care about making Higher Ed work.
Very few 'jerks' & I like my colleagues
Good place to learn fast, things move very fast so you'll learn a lot in a short amount of time.
Good product market fit
I have the tools I need to do my job

Cons:
Honestly just the normal cons of any growth stage company:
Priorities can change a lot.
Some key people get hired away by Amazon & Google.
Working is weird during Covid-19.
As we grow, new executives are hired so that can shake things up a bit if you're not expecting it.

The job it self was call-centre-y, easy but mostly clerical in nature. High emphasis on micromanagement via frequent 1-1s and call shadows. During peak season there is the expectation you participate in uncompensated overtime, and the unspoken expectation you will work through your lunch break to meet unrealistic goals. Management actively solicited feedback, but would reprimand you if feedback wasnt what they wanted to hear and would pretend they didnt get feedback on certain things when they did to cover their poor management. Its fine as an entry level experience point, but dont expect it to be big for your career.

I have been working at Top Hat full-time

Pros
- Executive team is very transparent with their teams and takes into consideration everyone's opinions and ideas
- It is a young, vibrant and innovative company flooded with extremely smart, hard working people that you can learn so much from day to day
- They have free lunches and provide a lifestyle benefit which can be used towards transit costs or a gym membership
- Coming to work is exciting and challenging

Cons
- There is sometimes so much to do with not enough hours in the day but I would rather be busy and engaged in the work I am doing vs staring at the clock all day

As an Account Director at Top Hat I was able to work in a competitive sales environment while enjoying the energetic culture of a medium-sized startup.

Like many sales/account management roles I was expected to generate revenue from an assigned territory. The company went above and beyond to create a strong social culture that benefited from having young, passionate employees who could take pride in providing a software service that significantly impacts post-secondary education.

I enjoyed my time at Top Hat as it was a great opportunity to grow with a growing company.

The company has no real structure in place to help you grow. This role in particular only hampered my professional and social circumstances than helped.
By far the worst firm I have worked at. Really eye-opening to how toxic and damaging some companies and roles can be. 

If you're reading this: RUN. Run far far away from this employer. 

You will be asked to hit the ground running... with no training.

You will be asked to do things out of your normal requirements... with someone else taking praise for your work.

You will not receive a bonus.. because the man in charge is reaping all of the benefits. 

You will not receive a pay increase.. because "you're already being paid enough"

You will be asked to make independent decisions.. for those not to be used. 



Top Hat is a company that thinks that having a ping pong table and catered lunches is enough to drive a good culture. It uses those perks to avoid dealing with the real aspects that drive a great culture: autonomy, work-life balance, and diversity/inclusion initiatives.

Management hires the best of the best, but will not listen to their opinions or ideas, resulting in a depressed workforce that is wasting their talents.

With the expansion and innovation of this company it seems that their only focus is brining a new shipment of employees into the organization and to focus on continuously referring friends to come on board and join top hat. Once there, they do not focus on keeping you there. in fact, the longest I heard someone being there for a long period of time was 1 year, besides the CEO.

Top Job Titles	Average salary
Account executive 3 salaries reported	$85,333 per year
Software engineer 5 salaries reported	$127,800 per year
Customer success manager 6 salaries reported	$74,283 per year
Senior software engineer 5 salaries reported	$147,200 per year
Client specialist 3 salaries reported	$54,667 per year

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