The company prioritizes speed and output over quality, with defects blamed solely on the software team; critical gaps such as a lack of QA, decreased focus on quality, and a largely untouched UAT environment are ignored. Engineers are expected to move quickly. They are forbidden from asking product clarification questions because it slows things down. Senior leadership has even gaslit certain engineers for following functional specs, insisting that verbal conversations override documented requirements—despite no prior communication or codification of said nonsense.
Layoffs are supposedly based on productivity metrics, but in reality, politics and favoritism dictate who survives. Managers have no visibility into these decisions. An influential leader outside the engineering reporting structure arbitrarily selects engineers for intense scrutiny. No one knows how or why she picks her targets, but once marked, managers and VPs are instructed to watch them closely. It’s like being "marked for deletion"—and once that happens, redemption is rare. To be clear, this isn’t just speculation; it’s a well-known phenomenon that further erodes trust and morale. Meanwhile, entire departments were eliminated in knee-jerk decisions, leaving major gaps in operations and making the remaining employees wonder if they’re next.
The company’s approach to software development is completely backward. The latest genius idea is that engineers will be expected to code first, and only after the fact will specs be written to document what was built. This retroactive approach not only disregards best practices but also fuels blame when things inevitably go wrong. At the same time, the CEO’s obsession with AI has led to unrealistic expectations. He references questionable tech bro podcasts and idolizes corporate and federal entities that prioritize ‘efficiency’ over stability, seemingly eager to follow suit regardless of the consequences. Believing AI can double engineering productivity, he disregards quality concerns and even expects engineers to use AI-generated status reports, warning that he can tell when updates are written by humans. At the same time, engineers must provide updates every 1-2 days, carefully avoiding trigger words like ‘PTO’ or ‘junits,’ which set him off because they imply time away from work or a focus on quality over speed. Crafting these updates has become a time-consuming, team-wide exercise in avoiding unnecessary scrutiny.
The CEO and SVP maintain a thinly veiled bias against software, frequently stating that it is “not productive enough” without further articulation or quantitative evidence. Following a production incident, an independent audit was conducted, only for its findings—exonerating software—to be buried because they didn’t align with leadership’s narrative. Instead of investing in the existing team, the company hired a group of architects at double the engineers' salaries during a salary and promotion freeze for engineers. Architects often produce specs that focus on trivial details while ignoring complex challenges, requiring engineers to fill in the gaps. Any deviation from their specs requires approval, causing bottlenecks. When the anticipated ROI failed to materialize, engineers were blamed instead of leadership acknowledging their missteps.
The company has a rigid 8:30-5:30 schedule with a forced lunch hour, requiring engineers to work at a static desk on a desktop machine and update their status if they leave for more than a few minutes. The company claims to be flexible, but this is the least flexible place I have ever worked—engineers are expected to remain at their desks for the entire workday, with little autonomy over their own space. In-the-know employees fear taking more than four consecutive days off because leadership has fired individuals upon their return, after confirming they weren’t essential. Others hoard PTO in anticipation of inevitable layoffs, treating it as severance pay rather than a usable benefit, fueling burnout.
The lack of appreciation for engineers is glaring. When new features are announced, the CEO showers praise on ancillary teams while completely ignoring the software engineers who actually built them. He pretends to be an engineer, stating, “I’m not the best software engineer on this call”—despite having no engineering experience. In a puzzling move, job titles were rebranded to include “Engineer” to align with the CEO’s belief that anyone who solves problems is an engineer—further diminishing the expertise and work of actual engineers. Reviews from disgruntled production employees frequently praise our application, Octane. But let’s be clear: there is no Octane without the software team.
The CEO does not believe in cost-of-living increases and merit increases are rare. Top leadership continues to set unrealistic expectations while creating an environment of micromanagement, fear, and instability. This is not a place where software professionals can thrive.
