OVERVIEW: There is no trust, transparency, support, or job security with the management at this company. I warn anyone to stay away and do not waste their time working for this company unless you are willing to play games and feel insecure about your financial status at all times. The below is my perspective and experience at Crane AI. I was also in close quarters with everyone at its sister company Epic AI as well, and so you may see similar reviews.
BACKGROUND, AND ON HR: The CEO and CTO are the only two people that make up the management team. Because they manage everything, including HR, there is complete disorganization and disarray as to how things are run, both regarding HR and work tasks. On numerous occasions I have had to double check my paycheck and request that they make fixes. No-one should EVER have to worry whether they're getting paid the right amount or wonder if the CEO is going to "penalize" on their next paycheck for coming in late, or worry if they're getting the sick days they're allotted. I have felt cheated out of my own salary, and always felt insecure about what I should be earning.
THE CEO is a micro-manager that "hovers" over you when you work, even though I have noticed on multiple occasions that he doesn't understand or know what I'm supposed to be working on. He also monitors whether or not you come into work "on-time" or leave "too early." I have been scolded and YELLED at by the CEO about coming in late, when he was not there himself to witness it. Both the CEO and CTO provide contradicting instructions, which end up as the employee's fault, no matter what. This applies to both tasks that are given and about arriving to work on time. The CEO will not hesitate to make anyone feel guilty about the smallest mistake, or even arriving 1 minute past what time he wants you at work. Meanwhile, he sets no good example himself as a role model, comes into work at 11am or later, leaving at 4:30PM or earlier on many days. He has made contradictory claims about wanting employees to be at work at 9:30AM, but then berates people about coming in after 9AM, which has happened to me. At the same time, I have felt that he favors those who simply are "in the office" on time. He constantly makes jokes in front of employees about the lack of quality of their work in front of others. While it may seem a joke to him, it's not taken well by any co-worker that I know.
THE CTO seems to be moody, bipolar, and deceptive. Many of my coworkers, including myself, have been purposely ignored on the simple notion that the CTO was not happy with you one week or another. Instead of hearing from the CTO himself that he is unhappy with your work, the theory is that he has the CEO berate you for things unrelated to your work and make you feel as though you will be fired immediately if you don't fix things. The CTO is cowardly and has no dignity or courage when it comes to confrontation with his own team.
NO GROWTH & LEARNING: There is barely any interview process that allows for proper screening. This has clearly been to allow the company to hire quality work, for below average pay. There is no opportunity for growth as the CTO is attempting to manage more people than he can at a time, and expects you to deliver a deadline within one day, with no consideration as to how much work actually goes into a task. There are no middle managers. The CTO attempts to write code and design at the same time, essentially trying to do the tasks he's supposed to delegates to you. He completely ignores the UX Design process and I have been pressured to come up with UI and designs without properly going through a best practices workflow. If you don't finish them before him, he claims you aren't producing enough work and then relays to the CEO that you are unproductive. He will randomly call diff team members and rant indirectly about how the team is being unproductive and how unhappy he is, making you feel massively uncomfortable and unsafe.
NO WORK/LIFE BALANCE: You can never have work-life balance because you never know when you will be given a task by the CTO. He also likes to call team members and have a 3-hour long conversation via phone that is completely unproductive and uninspiring, and then still expect you to have a task done by EOD or by the next day.
INAPPROPRIATE COMMENTS AND MESSAGES: On multiple occasions both the CEO and CTO have sent slack messages, text messages, and verbal comments that made me, (and I'm sure others on the team) feel uncomfortable. I have even been told by others that the CTO wouldn’t hesitate to fire people just because they were not in on time a few times. MEANWHILE, he is sitting across the country in Nevada as we work in NYC, and has no real oversight into our presence. More than once a fellow coworker has shown messages that contained videos that didn't feel appropriate for the work environment. I myself have seen a video deleted just minutes after it was sent because they realized it wasn't appropriate.
UNREFLECTIVE MEASUREMENT OF PERFORMANCE: For developers, the CEO and CTO measure your performance based on the number of commits. This has NO reflection on the quality of code that is produced. I have witnessed them congratulating people and favoring those who simply "commit" more than others. For designers, your performance is measured on the number of screens produced, NOT the quality of the design solution. I've even seen a fellow coworker be berated for creating a 22-page document, and it not accruing in size within a week. Meanwhile, the CEO claimed that it was not worked on, and it must've been simply copied and pasted from other documents, when it was solely created by the worker, demoralizing her. This was at the same time that no tasks were given to fill time and the morale in the workplace fell far below than I could've ever imagined.
UNCLEAR AND CONFUSING RESPONSES AND POLICIES: When coworkers attempt to get transparency about anything, every answer is different as time goes by. Every time a coworker asks for answers, whether it's regarding health insurance, work tasks, vacation days, sick days, etc., we are all left in confusion because there is different enforcement every time. I have never felt I received a clear or straightforward answer, and I know my coworkers have felt the same.
Neither the CEO or CTO take any steps to provide a safe place to work or take any of the steps necessary to enforce proper HR. The only steps I have seen them take was for them to make as much money as possible off the quality labor the team provides. I have felt unempowered working here. I would have regretted ever taking this job if not for the team outside management that I have met and have had the wonderful pleasure of becoming friends with.
