How is to work at Toast

Great people, great pay, good work-life balance, great perks, really nice office/amenities. The product is best in class as well

Bravado Sales

Pros

Great people, great pay, good work-life balance, great perks, really nice office/amenities. The product is best in class as well
Cons

I am only 26 years old and this is the 2nd company I've ever worked for so I cannot say for certain if I have been wronged. However, I do not believe things were handled in the best way possible and I will tell you my story. First of all, I do want to say that I enjoyed my time at Toast. They have great pay, benefits, work-life balance, perks, people, etc. I started working there on 09/20/2021, 2 days before they went public. Our monthly SaaS quota was $1667 in monthly recurring revenue (5 deals, averaging $333/month each). Our OTE was $111k. When I was finished ramping on January 1st, they increased the quota to $2750/month (5.5 deals, averaging $500/month). This was about a 65% increase. Our average deal size was around $380/month so I am not sure what prompted the massive increase. Our OTE went from $111k to $137k, an increase of about 22%. I did not believe that our pay was increased enough in proportion to the increase in quota. I do not have much experience with why companies increase their quotas the way they do, but I do think 65% was too big of a jump. This paragraph may be a little out there, it may seem more like a conspiracy theory, but I will share it anyway. Part of the reason I believe this was done was that doing this could give Toast a chance to have people quit or fire people for missing quota, instead of having to do layoffs. I was wondering how our company did not have layoffs when the restaurant industry was hit hardest by COVID and when companies like Meta and Oracle did massive layoffs. By massively increasing sales reps' quota, they can effectively do a mass layoff without calling it that. This allowed them to keep top-performing sales reps and save money. Reps who hit the $1667 quota before the quota increase would be getting paid significantly less because they are now because they would be missing the accelerators for hitting quota. Part of the reason I believe the paragraph above may have some weight to it is because of how my termination went. In my interview process, I was told that I would receive 1/4th of my RSU's after one year. I had been working for Toast for one year and 10 days until they fired me on 09/29/22. However, they claimed that since the stock actually vested on 10/01/22, I would not receive my RSUs. I was also working many deals towards the end of the month and did have a path to getting to my quota, yet they fired me two days before my RSUs were vested. This was also two days before the end of the quarter so there may have been some personnel numbers they needed to hit. Again, it may be farfetched to say this was all intentional, but combined with everything else, I feel as if it could be a possibility. Lastly, on my last day at Toast, I checked my commission to know how much money to expect for my last paycheck. It said my check should be just over $2,000. I received a commission check of around $325. When I asked why there was such a discrepancy, they said it was because of deposit clawbacks. I didn't think the clawbacks would make that much of a difference so I asked for a breakdown of my commission. I saw that one column looked empty, and I was sure there should have been something there, which is what I told them. When they got back to me they said that a few deals were taken out of my name early, which is why I didn't get paid for them. They said they would put them back in my name and I would get the $2,000 commission check this month (which I did). If I never said anything, they would have essentially screwed me for $2,000. It seems like it was due to a mistake, but again, there's no telling if it was done intentionally. I cannot say for certain if there was any wrongdoing on their part. Any one of these things isolated by itself wouldn't be a problem. However, all of these things combined make me think that they did everything they could to pay sales reps less by increasing quotas which would give them the ability to coincidentally fire people before RSU's vested while also not properly paying them out on commissions due. Again, I am not saying they definitively did anything with bad intent, but I know there may be someone else with a similar story and maybe there is more to it than just being a big coincidence. I would be glad to offer more insight if need be.

Toast

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Cons