Lumere Reviews

The company actively fosters a very combative working environment. One of the company values is 'respectful debate', but there is little respect in the general tenor of company-wide and team-wide conversation (depending on the team, this was certainly true on the software engineering team). If you have a concern or an issue, be prepared to strongly defend your position and come ready with the solution in hand, or else you will more than likely be dismissed. It is not, in my experience, an inclusive environment. Though there is a generally dismissive atmosphere, it is doubly so for anyone from an underrepresented background. If you happened to be in that situation, be prepared to work twice as hard to see any returns for your achievements. Specific issues that I witnessed or experienced: - I often had to call out the questionable behavior of superiors (i.e. racist or sexist comments) without the support of colleagues in higher positions of authority. - I was told by an executive in a company-wide meeting that since he had never worked with a woman in a technical capacity before this company, I should feel privileged to work on such a gender diverse team. I was one of two women on the development team, the other was also not in a senior or leadership role. - I was told by the same executive that my salary wasn't commensurate with my skills and experience, but it was not going to be adjusted. He said that it was low because I was 'an unknown quantity' when I was hired and that I would be 'an unknown quantity' to any other company which I understood to be a veiled and sexist threat that I'd be hard-pressed to find a better paying job. - I was told by several people throughout the organization that any attempt to make the hiring process more inclusive would compromise the goal of hiring 'top talent'. - An extremely capable woman of color requested to be moved internally onto the development team. No one asked her about her applicable skills and experience (which she had). She was never interviewed for the position, or given an opportunity to pair with a developer. She was forced out of the company and her dismissal paperwork cited an 'attitude problem'. Later on, a white man on the same team requested an internal transfer to a department which he did not have applicable experience for, was given a trial period, did not make the cut, and was allowed to keep his original position. - People of color disproportionally left the company both voluntarily and non-voluntary. Of those leaving voluntarily, some cited lack of advancement opportunities. This issue was repeatedly brought up to senior leadership but it was dismissed as not a concern. - In my time on the software engineering team, there were zero technical leads or managers that were not white men. One of the longest tenured and most capable developers on the team was a man of color. He was never promoted in his time with the company, though senior and management positions were hired during that time (all white men). - When the company was pressed by clients on its diversity initiatives, an executive responded that they had hired a woman executive (in sales) so wasn't that enough? - A younger developer was continually and disproportionally tasked with low-level grunt work (which was mostly the result an enormous amount of unacknowledged technical debt) though he had proven he was capable of taking on more responsibility. He asked for more challenging work for more than a year to little avail. His input was often dismissed as lacking experience when his observations were typically apt and insightful. - The development team was perpetually interviewing senior developers, but I never saw an in-person candidate that was over the age of 35