I joined this company expecting to work as an engineer. Instead, I was promoted to immediately to "Software Magician", expected to perform technical miracles by converting loosely structured, AI generated, vibe coded ideas into something that could survive in production.
Shakudo markets itself as a software engineering company, yet day to day it feels dominated by layers of management rather than engineering. There are noticeably more people overseeing the work than actually building it. Engineers are treated as interchangeable resources, valued more for their ability to absorb chaos than for their technical judgment or craftsmanship.
Much of the work begins as “vibe coded” output created without real engineering discipline. Management appears enthusiastic about producing quick demos and ambitious promises, often relying on AI generated code that looks convincing on the surface but falls apart under real use. Stabilizing, rewriting, and maintaining this code becomes the engineers’ responsibility, and nightmare as it is usually under tight and unrealistic deadlines.
Technical reality is routinely sidelined. The priority is speed, not quality, sustainability, or long term viability. Poor planning and constant deadline pressure force teams to cut corners simply to keep things moving. The result is rushed, fragile software that everyone recognizes as problematic, along with a growing pile of technical debt that engineers are expected to carry indefinitely.
Accountability rarely travels upward. When systems fail or customers are impacted, responsibility is always redirected downward. Engineers are left to clean up the consequences of weak planning, overpromising, and decisions made without sufficient technical grounding.
Morale reflects this environment. Engineers talk about quitting the same way they talk about taking a lunch break. Casually, frequently, and without hesitation. That is, when lunch breaks are taken at all. Time is tightly monitored, with lunch expected to fit neatly into a short, fixed window, while overtime is treated as a normal and ongoing expectation rather than an exception. The imbalance is noticeable and contributes heavily to burnout.
Pager duty amplifies these problems. Being on call means responding to frequent production issues caused by disorganized systems and poorly structured code, much of it created outside core engineering teams. Documentation is minimal, ownership is unclear, and little feels intentionally designed or well maintained. There is a strict expectation to acknowledge pages within minutes at any hour, with company messaging tools repeatedly pinging until you do. Ironically, engineers are then held responsible for cleaning up everyone else’s messes, spending more time reacting to preventable failures than fixing root causes or improving the systems.
Overall, this is a workplace where burnout is common, engineering is undervalued, and accountability is consistently avoided, so anyone who cares about building quality software, working in a structured environment, or being treated as a professional should think very carefully before joining. And given the culture around control and reputation management, I would not be surprised if this review quietly disappears, which would be a fitting reflection of my experience here.
