Affirm

Like many companies out there, Affirm was a dream during its start-up phase. Health benefits were great, the CEO was very visible and approachable. There were great learning stipends and opportunities if you had a supportive manager.

Once the company went public, what was once a minimal, gradual decline all of a sudden became a ski slope. All finances were focused on growth by acquiring new offices and small companies, so promotions were extremely limited and salaries were a joke, especially if you're living in the Bay Area with constantly skyrocketing costs of living.

Middle management is incompetent and doesn't seem to care too much about their employees' development, especially if you are a person of color. Worse if you're a woman of color; the management titles in the org chart spoke for themselves. Hoping to spark new ideas for change, I expressed my concerns to the newly onboarded CISO that I didn't feel the engineering org was a place where women could succeed. To which they replied, "Oh, sorry to hear that." Something that should have been alarming to hear as an exec was simply dismissed.

Require management to continuously take courses and in-person trainings to improve their management skills. Simple annual "unconscious bias" online video training is not enough to solve such a deeply rooted issue that affects so many minorities.