Every issue this company stems from extreme micromanagement and downright disdain for their employees.
- On numerous occasions the engineering team was yelled at by the CEO for small bugs making it to our staging environment. These "bugs" were frequently just features that he had approved weeks prior but changed his mind about.
- Deadlines were set completely arbitrarily, with no regard for existing sprint commitments. The engineering team was expected to drop their current work to fulfill one-off requests from the CEO or another employee. Their sprint commitments were still due, however, and they were lambasted if they did not work 60+ hour weeks to meet them.
- Extremely high developer turnover. In a six man development team, they lost no less than five engineers in 12 months. All of the feedback was the same: the CEO was oppressive and the work hours were far too high. When asked about this, management replied that high turnover is the "nature of remote work".
- Engineers are on salary yet pay is withheld if less than 40 hours of work is reported. If an engineer works more than 40 hours they are never given overtime or even recognized for their efforts.
- Any attempts to surface issues with management were met with dismissal. Everyone else was the problem, not the CEO's childish tantrums.
A book could be written about the insanity that happens at this company, but I'll end with this: If you are a software engineer, do not work here. You will be underpaid, you will be worked to the bone, and you will be scolded for expecting anything better.