health coach

senior product manager

senior product designer

technical lead

growth marketer

Noom

Noom overall is a fair entry-level opportunity for new health coaches to establish their MI skills in a virtual environment. For the most part, the teamwork is good and colleagues are friendly and supportive. As a remote worker, you can pretty much set your own schedule M-F. Based on my experience, Noom genuinely wants to help improve the lives of others. The company is forward-thinking and is always experimenting with new ways to enhance the user experience and make it more personalized. You'll get to celebrate amazing milestones with some of those you coach and witness positive lifestyle transformations which does make the job more worthwhile to a point.

With that said, after between 3-6 months of working there, the honeymoon phase will wear off and reality will set in about this place. While there is of course merit in wanting a person’s health journey to be as unique and personalized as possible, this approach can’t be executed effectively and isn’t sustainable when each coach’s caseload fluctuates between 175 and 300 people, depending on the time of year. In order to offer personalized coaching to each person and cultivate strong rapport, coaches must remember several details about a person’s life (e.g. career, family life, hobbies, values, important life events, etc.). That’s doable when your caseload is in the double digits, but can be very overwhelming when you’re having to do this for well over 100 users every day, especially when you have high metrics to meet each week and keep messages under 24 hours old. You’re at a computer for several hours on end and although Noom promotes self-care and work/life balance, their expectations of coaches don't allow for much of that. More often than not, workdays are either slow and boring or jam-packed and stressful. There’s rarely an in-between.

Unless it’s “slow season” you really don’t have much of an opportunity to dig deeper with users, strengthen rapport, and offer higher quality coaching. You’re too busy trying to meet daily metrics (which are often unrealistic), troubleshooting tech issues with users (there’s constantly issues with the app and several haven't been fixed for months), attending lengthy company-wide meetings (half of which don’t even remotely impact your job), or completing lengthy and sometimes redundant or nuanced learning modules. Coverage for your caseload can at times be a joke if you need to take sick time or even if you’ve had a vacation planned for weeks, so people can be discouraged to take time off to avoid being slammed with several days-worth of work when they return.

The salary is somewhat of an insult. Between the workload for much of the year, the fact that you often have to serve as both a coach and tech support (even though you’re not paid to be tech support), and you regularly have to navigate extremely triggering and difficult messages from users struggling with mental illness or disordered eating which is outside of a coach’s scope, making under $40,000/year doesn’t cut it even if you are working from home. And no amount of company swag, professional development days, or cutesy wellness contests can compensate for that. Even if you have an advanced degree or certifications as a health coach or dietician, salary is non-negotiable and an area management never seems to want to discuss. 

Aside from the measly annual cost-of-living raise, to get any other pay increase or transfer to a different position you first have to volunteer to take on additional responsibilities within your team or devote a number of hours each week in a different department or “lab” that you’re interested in ALL WHILE maintaining your same caseload and meeting the same metrics! It’s free labor for them and there’s never a guarantee you’ll actually get the promotion you want. Unless you're an incompetent coach who gives the bare minimum and breezes through your user messages with robotic responses (I've seen this), you most likely won't have the mental or emotional bandwidth to take on additional roles and "earn" your way to a new position. Lately, job openings have been few and far between.

There honestly needs to be a character limit on how much a user can send their coach in a single message. You often get stuck sifting through novels from users and trying to figure out how to move the coaching conversation along. This severely impacts productivity and can be a mental and emotional drain. Users can treat the message platform like a dumping ground for all their complaints, personal problems, and neuroses. And again, it's a fine line between staying within scope and stepping outside of it. With the rapid protocol changes the company is making and expecting of coaches now, I'm concerned many employees are not adequately prepared for these changes and the company risks stepping outside of scope by overly pushing nutrition guidelines and psychology methods that normally require an advanced degree or licensure to execute effectively, legally, and ethically. 

Noom offers access to Betterhelp for its employees at no cost…you’ll need it to process the workload and all the heavy messages you’ll receive, trust me. Burnout and compassion fatigue among coaches is common. From my experience, supervisors are genuinely empathetic toward your concerns and struggles but are also in a tough position with how to effectively address this. Coach turnover is apparently high; I noticed SO MANY coaches are only within their first year or so with the company and yet Noom has been around for several years. Hmm…

Lastly, although most of those on the coaching team are highly skilled, friendly, and are happy to lend a helping hand, I've noticed that the virtual work environment here can be somewhat clique-ish and have toxic positivity. Several employees use our main work platform that we use to communicate with each other in as an opportunity to be self-indulgent, attention-seeking, and brag about themselves. At times it can feel like you're back in high school or witnessing a popularity contest.

Job security and advancement
The training was rushed and incomplete with different and conflicting information being taught in different training groups, yet the trainees are held accountable for errors made as a result of the very poor training information. It is literally survival of the fittest instead of organized training. I saw many past employees in the Slack system who were no longer with Noom who were regularly disparaged by senior User Support team members. It seemed no one was sacred. Those who do not question the lack of organization are groomed and favored. There is a discussion on the down low among employees about the confusing and conflicting information. Many are afraid to question it because the response from L. and M. are cutting criticisms without addressing the question. They actually look for an error in your ticket history to redirect the question to your minor momentary inadequacy without acknowledging your original question or concern. As an employee with a very high customer satisfaction rate, this was an even more ridiculous response from management. So if you are a “yes” person that does not address rather professionally abusive practices, then advancement is slightly possible. Otherwise, messages between co-workers include wondering if we are doing well or not because there is virtually NO positive reinforcement. For a company that touts positive psychology as the foundation of their program, that foundation does not extend to User Support employees.

Management
The founders send some of the most juvenile mass emails to employees including extreme profanity and vulgar humor. Any resistance to the culture of Noom (think “The Truman Show”- and yes, you are Truman), is punished by sophomoric herd-like behavior directed by narcissistically manipulative people motivated by protecting their jobs and employee stock more than govern themselves and lead others in inspiring and professional ways. Before I left I asked my closest associates why they stay if they are so unhappy and they replied that they can’t find $20 an hour in their community and are willing to put up with it. All complaints online that I have seen about Noom are spot on. My observation was that coaches were put in extreme circumstances of verbal abuse by app users, and were using macros to answer many of the most sensitive and personal questions a person can ask. My coworkers and I mostly dealt with issues that were highly preventable.

Culture
Positively toxic. Watch “The Truman Show” and take the bluntly honest critiques of this employer very seriously. They promised unlimited overtime, which was a lie. Most things went about like the overtime issue. They are never the problem. It is you. Always you.

Overall
Positively toxic. Watch “The Truman Show” and take the bluntly honest critiques of this employer very seriously. They promised unlimited overtime, which was a lie. Most things went about like the overtime issue. Not as advertised. They are never the problem. It is you. Always you. The users with problems are mocked in group discussions on Slack. They have no respect for people not just like them. Noom is driven by its own relevance. This compels management to scramble to present the best public picture with doctored reality. You will be asked to say things to customers that you know are not true and watch the senior support people laugh about it while your newer coworkers “chuckle” nervously and gossip about their discomfort privately. That is not my style. If you are a “yes” person no matter what, this job is for you.

When I started working at Noom I was very excited. The benefit of working from home and having a flexible work schedule seemed great. 
Very soon after starting my caseload was close to 500 ACTIVE members (specially in January with New Year's resolutions) and the work hours kept getting longer and longer. They tell you to work your 8 hours and take breaks as you need to but the truth is that with the amount of members sending messages, 8 hours only give you an average of 3 minutes to respond to each message - that is no way to effectively coach anyone. I ended up working 10-12 hours/day and kept being called out by my manager for not getting the messages under the 24 hrs expectation they had. Mondays were the worst because of all the messages sent during the weekend. I'm not sure what expectations or metrics they use right now. 
I was burned out and feeling like a total failure because I wanted to provide high-quality coaching to my members but with the high caseload that was near impossible. I also started gaining weight (too many hours in front of the computer, even if I stood for several hours), started having a lot of pain in my shoulders and wrists due to the constant typing/mouse usage (I used ergonomic everything), and my emotional health was at its worst because of the stress and constant pressure to meet expectations - I was borderline depressed.  
I was one week short from my 1 year anniversary when I quit and it was the best decision I ever made! It's been over 2 years since I worked for them but I am still recovering from that job, physically and mentally. I think I stayed that long because I really wanted to believe I was making a difference in people's lives and because management kept telling us we were the chosen "1%" of all the coaches that apply for that position - all lies. My members were frustrated because I couldn't get back to them fast enough and I kept feeling like I was not good enough.
Now I'm a health coach for another remote company that doesn't overwork me, pays me fairly and has realistic metrics/expectations. I am excelling there, have a good work/life balance (real 8 hours and done!) and feel like I am in fact helping people achieve their health goals without compromising my own health and wellbeing!

Where do I even begin. I guess I'll start with the good because that part is a lot shorter. As someone who's had a lot of health issues in the time I've worked here and had to drive back and forth to doctors appointments all the time, I really can't complain about the flexibility that the job offers. Working remotely definitely has its pros in general. I also enjoy many of the people I work with - they're one of the only reasons I'm still here. The company also has a lot of diversity and inclusion initiatives. 

There's a lot I could say on the negative side, but I'll try to keep it short. First, the pay is not good. They did recently increase the baseline pay for coaches which has been somewhat helpful, but the only reason they did it is because they got a ton of employee backlash after giving out <1% yearly raises to people who had worked hard for much more. Personally, I'm still basically living paycheck to paycheck. The toxic positivity is insufferable. Especially considering this is the most emotionally draining job I've ever had. They encourage us to take breaks for our wellness in addition to 30 minutes for lunch while also making time for meetings, but it's hard to do that while trying to meet the metric standards they expect and work within 8 hours. It's extremely difficult to effectively coach people when we have such high caseloads and high standards to meet every day. I wish I had more time to give to each user, but we aren't given that time. In turn, our users are frustrated and often express feeling like they're not getting the help they need. 

If you express any concern or disagreement over how things are done, you're basically told it's your fault and that you need to be doing something differently. It's hard to feel valued or feel like the 1% of applicants they say that we're chosen from when their actions do not reflect this. I would not recommend working here to anyone. 

Noom provided a job throughout the pandemic when many did not have any options. For that I am grateful. This is a place where a false sense of comfortability has trapped many. Things started off well but quickly took a turn for the worst. Particularly around the time when the company went public or "corporate". The interview process was long and involved an application, questionnaire, and round of several virtual meetings. If you know the components of health coaching you will do fine. A typical day of work is managing a massive caseload of anywhere from 200-300 users all day from 6 am to 10 pm. It is important to note that overtime hours are not acknowledged and the caseload is to be completed or face termination. With a recession looming and user count continuing to drop I am not sure how much longer I'll have a job here. The majority of coaches were paid such low salaries that they also worked other part-time or full-time jobs to make ends meet. You are to adhere to impossible strict guidelines and protocols while the user count decreases drastically. It is public record that they've been sued for poor business practices. Upper management leadership is very poor due to a lack of accountability. The hardest part of the job is being trained to coach a certain way and later being reprimanded for that same coaching style. The most and only enjoyable part is that it is remote. The pay is not enough to support anyone. Pros: Remote, Flexible schedule, steady salary pay, rewarding work, continuing education opportunities. Cons: Low annual salary, high caseload, poor benefits, poor leadership, lack of work-life balance, long hours, lack of growth opportunities. The workplace culture is very bizarre. There is an atmosphere of passive-aggressive false positivity that tarnishes one's psyche. After being an employee for more than 3 years I am not the same person. I wish I could say that it was for the better. 

The work itself was enjoyable, not very difficult, and kept me busy in a good way. My direct supervisor was AMAZING and the supervisor above her was great too. The coaching team really cares about each other and I have never worked in a more supportive, kind, and welcoming position. I have no issues whatsoever with any of my former coworkers, clients, or supervisors. 

The interview process was LONG. First was a written test about different coaching scenarios, a week later was a multiple choice test, another week later was a live coaching test over Google docs, yet another week later was a Zoom interview, and one more week later came the actual job offer. I think I might be missing something still. It was definitely well over a month from the first step in the interview process to the job offer. 

I definitely learned a lot in this position and I loved it. The hardest part of the job was dealing with upper management and executives (basically like any other job). I don't want to speak ill of anyone or the company, but they implemented A LOT of changes starting early this year (2022) that - in my opinion - really hurt the company, its clients, and insulted its coaches. The one thing that really got to me was the toxic positivity and moderators removing and discouraging any comments/questions/concerns that could be interpreted in an even remotely negative manner. 

The benefits were alright. Good insurance, pretty exceptional time off, good free/discounted resources for employees, and you get $75 a year for educational books. 

Overall, I don't know where the company is going or if it will even survive with all the changes they have made and are planning on making. It was very enjoyable for me for most of my time there, but it all changed and made work more difficult and less enjoyable. I am grateful for the experience and the people I met there. 

At first, this job can truly seem like a diamond in the rough. It's incredible to be able to work from home and if you get paired with a great team, it makes things fun! 

That being said, this job is not what it use to be. After working here for three years, it's completely exhausted all of the people I see around me. There are incredibly high expectations that need to be met and the truth is that you cannot truly coach the users like you want to. I went into this job loving wellness and came out absolutely despising diet culture and anything that is "stereotypical" wellness. While you do get great users from time to time, most struggle with some type of disordered eating which can be taxing on your mental health. The company would not be where it is without coaches, and that is not displayed. You are told to be transparent, while Noom will dox you for saying anything negative. I knew it was my time to leave when the slack channel was opened encouraging employees to share any negative posts/information they saw about the company so they could monitor it/shut it down. I specifically remember how the top viewed "Noom Review" Youtube video was negative and they had reached out to them and "somehow" got them to create one that was positive instead. While the intention might have started out loving and caring, as we have grown it's not truly the case. I don't want to feel scared to speak up and speak the truth about Noom, but sadly I know many others who feel this same way with no avenue to express what's going on. I truly did love my job, but how many red flags are enough? 

This company LOVES the word transparent. Well...GOOD LUCK if you are a Goal Specialist. You have metrics (500 tasks per week and 8 hours of work per day). A special team reviews your metrics and notifies your supervisor if you don't meet your metrics. Here's the thing: they REFUSE to let you see your tasks in real time. They REFUSE to share the same Task Counter that they use. They do give you your own, entirely meaningless and inaccurate Task Counter, while using a different one to see if you're doing what they consider tasks. You can do 612 tasks in a week and only get credit for 450. When asked they give long, winded answers that directly avoid the question. 

Another thing is the metrics are designed for unfair and unequal work. What if you're a fast typist and coach with superficial, short sentences? You finish 100 tasks in 5 hours. Well, tough. You get to keep working for a full 8 hours even though you've met your salaried requirements. You might even have to fill in for another employee and send clients messages FROM THE OTHER COACH'S ACCOUNT. Yep, you get to fraudulently appear as another coach to clients to catch up another employee for no extra pay. What if you're a slow typist? Well I hope you like putting in 10+ hour days because you MUST hit that 100 task mark or else. They SAY they want you to only work 8 hours but that's ONLY if you're hitting your metrics. Oh, and you might want to hit 120 each day to give you some wiggle room since not every task you do counts.  

If you are an entry level coach who has a spouse that can make up for the lack of pay then Noom is good. It's flexible and a good way to gain experience. The company does claim to care about their employees but instead of just doing what everyone has asked, which is to increase the pay, they just continue to scoot around it and say they are paying 'market value' which is why tons of coaches are leaving for other companies. The company has some backwards ways of doing things that feel a little slimy, like being very hush hush about what other positions are paid and creating a clear path for advancement and no negotiating pay. You also are expected to 'volunteer' and do additional work for no compensation as a way of getting you to think it will help you advance. It feels nearly impossible to switch roles that pay more, and when they do have roles available, tons of coaches apply because we are all dying for a higher salary. There are only two ways to make more money at Noom after being a coach - otherwise you can move into other roles that pay the same.

The culture is dying, coaches are starting to become more and more removed and we are feeling more disconnected as an organization and Noom grows it becomes more corporate. They did give us better insurance this year after we all complained enough which was great - but they need to continue to improve the compensation package.


As Noom has grown and taken on more investors the focus has dramatically moved from the health and well-being of the employees to the money they're making and the metrics. They refer to the workplace as a family, which is problematic at best, and then do not communicate with employees about important changes that will massively impact them and the quality of their lives until the changes have already been made. They over promoted and kept employees on wait lists for management positions that they had been promoted to for over a year. They eliminated roles people worked hard for with no warning and no alternatives in place. They promised raises for months and months and kept putting it off. They announced dates things would happen and then change them and act like the information had not been changed - though screenshots of earlier communications revealed those dates had actually changed. Then when they did give raises they gave most employees a raise of a fraction of a percent when inflation is at 10% or more. When the employees were furious they adjusted they raises and then a few weeks later laid off massive amounts of people. They are a total mess and I would recommend steering clear. You will not be treated well. Caseloads are high and support is low. They do not have any empathy or respect for parents or other caregivers who were challenged during the pandemic. 

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