Pros
Pretty unique and challenging business model
Cons
Pre-COVID and post-COVID have been a tense few months here at plastiq. 20-30% of employees have been let go. We find out in a weekly announcement email and it’s the first headline every plastiq employee looks out for. Who got fired this week? I definitely feel nervous about my job. The people team hasn’t been entirely transparent with all the layoffs. And folks who have worked at plastiq for more than 3 years aren’t even given the opportunity to send out a goodbye message. Their slack profile just shows deactivated. There’s little to no communication. Also, the engineering management is extremely inexperienced. From what I gather, most of the managers have been at plastiq for more than 2 years and have been promoted within the company, never having management experience in the past. As an engineering manager, it is your job to bring in a wealth of knowledge and experience to the team. And to be active participant in engineering decisions. Whether that be proposing new architecture designs, pushing for new tools, sharing helpful articles, etc. I see little of that. Teams seem to be guided mostly by the product managers and the engineering managers are all talk. This issue goes all the way up to leadership. Every meeting we hear talk of how great the team is and how great the product. But we don’t get much actionable items, just pep talk day in and day out. There needs to be more doers, not talkers at plastiq. You know who you are.
