software engineer

material handler

senior software engineer

growth marketer

warehouse operations

iHerb

1. It was the worst code-base I ever worked on, by far, and I've worked at dozens of companies. Every anti-pattern you could think of -- magic numbers and strings everywhere, and a WCF Frankenstein architecture that was hacked together in some 3-month death march. Plus, it was originally written by a bunch of the Persian guys now in management, so everything was in broken English ("ManagementClasseses").

2. On the day of the release, you may get a random code review that requires all sorts of refactoring. You will then be bullied into releasing the code without testing. If it does blow up, it is your fault. If you deploy to Dev to at least do a smoke test, a manager may ask you what you are doing. No time for that!

3. Every deploy is a drag-and-drop to a server, even prod. No build server, no batch files, not even an xcopy. A release is an all-nighter involving surgical edits of config files and trial-and-error.

4. The IT department is literally two sections in different parts of the Irvine office. One part is the back office development, and one part is the web-site code. The two departments are always playing Spy-vs.Spy with each other in the shared hairball of code, so the devs get caught in the middle.

5. Any change has to be duplicated in sometimes 3 different places, and code is copy-and-pasted everywhere. Total cargo cult mentality. Ask why they do it this way and you will get the standard answer -- we've always done it this way.

6. Now this is a first, in my 20 years of coding. You may be asked to work on the Chinese version of the website, because the Chinese love Herbal medicine, and the site barely works in China. I had a lead keep telling me the shopping cart was broken because he kept clicking on the cart and nothing would happen. It worked fine, he just couldn't read the Chinese message that said "Your cart is empty." That cost an hour on release day.

7. An absolute, relentless Not-Invented-Here attitude. Everything is a hand-rolled hack, from loggers to exception handlers.

8. High turnover. The developer before me lasted three months, and it wasn't even two months before I agreed to part ways. They are always hiring in OC, but not because they growing, they are churning.

9. You can't fix any of the fundamental problems because they are in a perpetual state of "moving to a different platform" like SQL-Server to MySQL, and IIS to ngenx or some other silver bullet.

10. Sweating out a complex release in fire-drill mode is actually an emotional bonding exercise for the team that some of the people crave and the clearly enjoy. They will never agree to Continuous Integration, automated deployments, build servers, or anything in the Joel Test that will deprive them of this adrenaline rush.

Pros

- Financially strong company due to business growth
- Free snack/gym
- The best place to learn politics

Cons

It’s not a place to learn and develop your skills and grow in your career;
It's the best place there is, the place there was, and the best there ever will be to improve your politic skills.
There seems to be a classic high school "cool kids" group with all the classic negative attributes.
I witnessed markedly bad behavior from the management far too often. Not much in the way of Leadership or communication.
No work life balance due to unrealistic deadlines and lack of human resources. One myth is it's easy to see candidates who are there for job interviews, but no one comes to join teams around you. Even iHerb doubled referral bonus, most people do not refer their acquaintance. All the good one around suddenly disappear from your site.
Do not be blinded by the lure of unlimited FTO. That is an illusion; it only happens to a few people who have nepotism advantages.
Compensation and benefits are average or below average. No annual bonus. Profit sharing exists, but really small. They only cover 75% of your health and dental insurance. If you are not being paid as much as the number posted on Glassdoor, you are underpaid.
The culture is very confusing. During the interview process, the culture was presented as warm and inviting, but that seems to be more of an aspiration than a reality.
 - Can’t do your work with freedom
 - Team politics
 - Nepotism and Favoritism: the best place for Iranians
 - People who throw others under the bus and take credit for other people's work get promoted
 - Promotions are not transparent
 - Fewer holidays compared to others: only 6 days
 - A shortcut path to stressed out

 Due to these negatives metioned here, high turnover. They are always hiring in OC, but not because they growing, they are churning.

Advice to Management

- The negative information about iHerb posted on Glassdoor is true, but not positive ones.
- Stop making people post fake 5 stars reviews

Orientation the first day set off a red flag for me when the iherb speaker says to all of us. " If You Want a Job Then We Don't Want You Here".
What the heck, If that's the case we all would be unemployed.

The opened in 1996 and they act like they don't know what their doing at all yet.

That's basically how this place operates, the day to day job in receiving area keeps changing from week to week on how they should receive their new inventory coming in.
One week you'll be receiving master case boxes with other boxes inside those boxes full of products to be all counted and received together into the computer system and it will be fine to do that but, then the next week they will want all the boxes of products in the master cases to be taken out and receive each individual box separately for inventory stock.

And receiving skids full of the exact same product was another riddle to deal with, one week you would count up the entire skid, total the number of individual items, and the case size of each box and print the products labels out for each box but, no, they would change next week to totaling the whole skid up and have only 4 labels printed for the whole skid, The make you deal with riddles everyday.

Don't expect a 2nd chance with this company either if your having trouble with a elderly parent at home or family, 
i was there everyday and on time even worked every overtime day i did not have to work but, if they do favor you over a harder worker you'll be able to miss a day to pick someone up at the airport or don't come in another day and still come back to work with no problems.

Thanks i-Herb, Me and my sick elderly mother appreciate no 2nd chance for something that is out of my control just because, you don't like someone.

The benefits are better than the industry standards:  fully remote work, medical premiums fully paid, bonus potential, unlimited PTO, and great 401k matching.  Unfortunately, the company is so full of nepotism and favoritism that the experience for the average employee is abysmal.  If you are a favorite, you will get praise just for showing up to work, even if late or missing meetings or missing critical sprint goals!  You will be connected to very important people at the company.  You will move up easily and get high bonuses and salary increases.  Co-workers will respect you no matter what.  If you are not one of the favorites, then it doesn't matter what you do.  You can be hitting it out of the park but you will receive little to no praise or recognition from managers or senior leadership.  Oh, but do anything wrong, like raise concerns about deploying something too early or testing something more, and you will be reprimanded or get negative marks come review time.  They also are very quick to lay people off or shift work over to China, but the environment is so toxic that most other employees think they are special and will try to rationalize upper management's decisions.  Same employees will also praise and cater to the favorite employees while shunning those that are not favorite.  By creating such an environment, upper management has utterly failed to create an environment conducive to innovation, creativity, and even more basics like job security.  The company should be avoided on all days ending in y.

You have to be in the little seniority gang to be a viable part of their team to be recognized for the work you do.

The supervisor will play games with you just to get you to work harder so the receiving record they want is met for inventory stock and the supervisor is the one getting the that a boy on the phone for your hard work that the supervisor had nothing to do with by lying to the new hires about being put in core which means getting hired.

The overturn rate for 2nd shift receiving team which they call the A Team is horrible and they have temps training temps because, the fulltime employees are so wore out from constantly training new people over and over just to see them walk out, I was in one of the first temp groups they brought in on August 26,2019 for the new receiving and inventory expansion building they opened up and by the time 9 weeks came around of that group I was the only one left and in that 9 weeks droves of temps came and went--- Poor Supervisors, Poor Management, and Poor Training/Hiring of the right people is the reason that the overturn rate is so high, they were throwing anybody and anyone into receiving inventory with no computer and mathematics skills at all and still are.

Not a livable wage at 14.00 an hour unless your a BCSID big Supervisor.

A typical working day is extremely stressful, and no matter how hard you work, it's never enough. 

The basis on which your productivity is calculated is arbitrary: You can process 50 tickets, but only the closed ones count.

You're asked to make a full-time commitment, but it's a one-way commitment, since at any moment you're simply asked to “leave”, which means that in the end, you work an average of 2 to 3 hours a day, and it's completely random: the 2 to 3 hours a day can be worked separately! 

First you'll be asked to take an “extended lunch break” of two hours. When you return, you'll work for about 20 minutes before being asked to take an “extended lunch break” again, and then you'll be asked to leave - the end of the day for you!

Toxic management: weekly indoctrination meetings. Favoritism. Archaic management. Refusal to grant rest days even though requests are made according to internal procedures. Constantly changing procedures, making it impossible to control them: 

no time to get used to a new procedure before it changes again.

Depending on your job you will be expected to come in early, and stay late without much much to little recognition or compensation during End of Year Reviews. The feeling of 'Not doing enough' is prevalent constantly. Management is poor. There is a big picture or end goal, but never conveyed though management's actions. Inter department communication is almost non existent. I currently work within Accounting, specifically Fraud Prevention and the culture of interacting between Accounts Payable with Purchasing regarding vendors and resolving inventory issues is embarrassing. Most if not all stress felt can be traced back to the lack of communication between departments that otherwise needs to be communicated often. Absolutely no Standard Operating Procedures are in place or exist. So you rely on asking your teammates for help or immediate supervision. 

Career advancement is present and encouraged. 

The Benefits and 401k offered are wonderful. Company pays for a majority of costs. Weight Watchers watchers for those employees who wish to improve their lives. Paid for completely by the company.

Clock in at 5am go to the work area, stretch and search the board on what your assigned area is or whats available. Work until finished with specific pallets to get through. 

I learned a good hard days work is more rewardable when you give it your all. I have learned how the work place is work and not fun and games, you go to work to get the job done in how the owner sees fit, and that you can suggest new ways to accomplish your goals.

The management was good and they always seemed to be helping people that needed the questions answered. Always helping, vigilant and scanning to make sure that everyone is doing their job correctly and productively.    

The environment working there was decent.

Hardest part about the job was for me personally standing still unloading and loading all in the same spot. 

The most enjoyable part of the job was when I was able to move around and put the products in the places they needed to go, always moving always active and productive, Zero standing around or standing in one spot for hours. I like moving around and being productive. it makes me feel like I'm doing something and not just waisting time.

Truly adore the Mission, Vision, and Values as described by the CEO. I believe in the potential that each individual has to contribute to their own independent success. I have been able to leverage my experience and creativity in my position making way for tremendous accomplishments recognized by not only my Department Manager but my Manager's Manager. It is evident that in this environment diversity, transparency, and inclusion are values that have continued to flourish in the iHerb culture. 

CONS: There are still a few at iHerb who are slow to catch on to the ever growing opportunity to partner with those inside and outside of their departments in an effort to maximize efficiency and comradery. I have learned that wherever one works there are stellar and not so stellar individuals and procedural jargon to manage. One needs to balance the negative with the positive in an effort to conclude an accurate assessment. My assessment is that 94% of those associated with iHerb are outstanding!! The work life balance is unlike anything I have seen where Management encourages Administrative staff to leave on time and take vacation. We are a team at iHerb and encourage diversity and inclusion.

Many of the negative reviews are spot on regarding what the issues are when it comes to working here.  The HR onboarding experience is outstanding, everything looks good until you see how toxic the work place is and this absolutely stems from the CEO on down.  The CEO is absolutely not a personable person, upper management claims they are open door they absolutely are not.  When during your first week you are told to watch how you talk or interact with certain people if you want to keep your job, that should tell you all you need to know. And I don't mean the obvious relationship building I mean having to understand that one wrong move with that person and you are gone is just too much.  When your managers make your job harder than it needs to be then there is an issue.  Also their business model depends on foreign markets heavily since most of what they carry you can buy at Amazon.  They are trying to cleanup before they go public, but the problem is not processes its the people at the top who foster a culture of micro managing.  Lucky for me I had another offer in my pocket and yes I absolutely took it and got out quick.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Software engineer 5 salaries reported	$137,962 per year
Material handler 9 salaries reported	$19.69 per hour
Senior software engineer 3 salaries reported	$185,667 per year
Growth marketer 15 salaries reported	$97,479 per year
Warehouse operations 4 salaries reported	$26.88 per hour

Working at iHerb: Company Overview and Reviews

iHerb

iHerb Ratings

Popular jobs at iHerb

Salary Satisfaction

Job Seeker Tools

Employer Tools

Browse

Stay Connected