Great potential, but some bad management - Software Engineer Thetus Employee Review

Thetus has been a great place to build on my career in my late twenties. While the day-to-day work can be stressful, the challenges keep me on my toes. This is what keeps me engaged and wanting to come back for more. I have taken advantage of Thetus' education benefit, which allowed me to take several classes at PSU to support my future career goals. As many others have said, the people I get to work with here are amazing! I consider many of my coworkers to be good friends, which is a nice feeling. The open work environment is fun, especially when the Nerf guns come out. I'm not a pet person, but I do enjoy seeing the office dogs roam the floor throughout the day. And I definitely take advantage of the free beer and pool table!

The work I do feels a bit thankless at times, but that's been true of most places I've worked. I don't feel like I have a clear vision of where the company is headed in the next few years. The CEO openly shares information about our immediate future at company lunches, but I would like to hear more about our longer-term plans.

Benefits are really fantastic. More vacation days than I can reasonably spend, great 401(k) matching, free beer on tap, subsidized (free) mass transit and more. Software product is gorgeous and the customers are all working in interesting areas. Fellow employees are smart, generous and talented. There's the kernel of a great software company with a fantastic culture here.

Almost everything anybody has said on Glassdoor about the CEO is true. She's brilliant, but probably certifiable. Every interaction is a grab bag and she appears to spend most of her time treating her employees like a middle-school clique. She takes no accountability for her actions and regularly scapegoats employees until they're driven from the company. It's bizarre and ultimately self-defeating. I can't even imagine how our customers felt about her. Communications is also the most broken I've ever encountered in a company. Week long waits for email responses, no desk phones, so no way to call each other, people ignore IMs, nobody is willing to commit to anything. A couple executives advertise that they "don't do email" making them virtually impossible to talk with. Some of this is people's unwillingness to put anything in writing lest it get forwarded to the CEO and their life get turned into a living micromanaged hell. The result is a demoralized, paralyzed workforce that's simply too afraid to use their own agency to push the products and company forward. Engineering work is glacially slow as a result, with year long delays in basic work not uncommon. All the talent is there to make this a huge company, but the executive level is rotten to the core. Despite the benefits package, don't work here.