Pros
A select group of employees can advance quickly, have generous vacation and PTO, great work/life balance, and a good amount of free non-project time. You can wear everyday clothing as long as it’s appropriate. The office is large, so the company’s approx. 12 employees can spread out comfortably.
Cons
It’s my opinion that Emcien is a toxic workplace that has a proven track record of chasing off numerous intelligent, talented, hardworking professionals. Based on my personal experience, it seems to me that if you take a job at Emcien, you may experience or witness the following... Hostile work environment created by management: *Being told by the CEO that your work is garbage and it belongs in the trash and that you don't have the capacity to learn. * The CEO and CTO repeatedly cutting down former employees. And making fun of current employees behind their backs. * Being yelled at by the CEO. * Being spoken to rudely, disrespectfully by the CEO and CTO. * Being told by the CTO on 3 separate occasions that he did not want to hire you because he thought your work wasn't good enough. * The CTO challenging an employee aggressively and loudly at length on matters pertaining to the employee's area of expertise, but not the CTOs (the appropriate balance of volume and relevance when selecting keywords for a paid search campaign, etc). And rejecting any attempts by the employee to de-escalate, pause, or move past the frightening, unprofessional exchange. * The CTO storming up to an employee and loudly barking passive-aggressive questions (about a trivial matter - a slide in a sales deck) obviously meant to criticize and bully. Dishonest, unethical behavior from management: * The CEO committing to provide benefits via an offer letter, but then failing to provide them, arguing the benefits were never offered, arguing to compensate only a fraction of benefits, and only agreeing to honor the full benefits in the offer letter after 2 additional uncomfortable meetings. * The CEO inventing fake employees on social media. * Senior leadership writing fake employee reviews on Glassdoor. * The CEO making commitments to employees about yearly bonuses and then reneging on them. * The CEO failing to provide revised paperwork re: a stock benefit until 6 months after employees requested it. * The CEO and CTO taking negative action against an employee, in what appeared to be an act of retaliation, after the employee made a complaint about the CEO’s rude behavior and dishonest representation of the employee’s job description and level of autonomy. Contempt for expertise and micro-micromanagement from management: * The CEO insisting that the company is a "high feedback environment" where work improves through open dialogue and constructive criticism. But instead using that claim as cover to control projects and provide sharp criticism and destructive comments on employee work. * The CEO and CTO requiring that select employees (themselves included) review projects outside their department and where they have zero or little expertise. And simultaneously dismissing the recommendations of staffers in that department who do have expertise. * The CEO micromanaging the work of employees when the opportunity arises. Sexism/gender discrimination from management: * The CEO, CTO, and senior leadership disproportionately inflicting the bad behavior outlined in this review on women. * The CEO fighting with the company’s only female employee over 5+ meetings to avoid giving her a modest cost-of-living raise after achieving a near-perfect annual review. * The CEO telling the only female employee never to ask for any more money ever again. * The CEO discontinuing performance reviews for the company’s only female employee. * This, while simultaneously giving the male engineering team regular reviews, significant raises, promotions, and significant bonuses. * The CEO giving bonuses disproportionately to the male engineering team and not tying bonuses to performance reviews. Sexual harassment: * The CEO taking no significant action after an employee reported being sexually harassed by a colleague. * The CEO then sexually harassing the complaining employee herself by slapping her hard on the buttocks and accusing her of being in love with a colleague. * The CEO later harassing the same employee further by touching her inner thigh and telling the employee that “for all she knew, this was sexual harassment.” Miscellaneous dysfunction: * The CEO directing the company in an opportunistic and reactionary way rather than building a solid foundation of strategy, planning, and process. * The CEO insisting on a continuous cycle of thrashing, directing employees to revise a handful of projects (ex: a sales deck) over and over again for months with no evidence that revisions improved performance significantly. And at the same time, leaving the majority of other critical priorities and projects untouched. * The CEO and CTO not admitting, or taking responsibility for, mistakes or failures and instead blaming others or insisting the mistake or the failure didn’t happen or was intended all along. * The CEO and CTO seeming to scapegoat and abuse current employees amid company failures. * The CEO and CTO promoting a member of the senior leadership team despite his very public and well-known avoidance of work, use of company time for naps and shopping, coming in late and leaving early. And despite multiple complaints about his work performance from multiple employees. This, while holding other employees to significantly higher standards of conduct and performance.
