Agoda

I like tropical weather, and Bangkok is a great city.

Agoda is claiming to be lean and agile – what a joke! That's just for marketing purposes and to attract talent.

In fact, Agoda is losing a lot of good and talented backend people (and bookings) every month.

Why? This is hell wrapped up in shiny cellophane. The working environment is just pathetic – huge technical debt, no collaboration between teams, no visibility whatsoever of what's going on, daily production escalations, bureaucracy, and bad management practices. Everyone's little interests are their own KPIs.

Product management is basically owning the backend team and development, while backend management is weak and almost dysfunctional. Guess who made sure the current and previous technical management is so weak?

Dev management is absent, as they sit all day in meetings and are occupied with sending emails.

That means it's all about product, features, and micromanagement. So boring!

Nobody makes any architectural decisions, and there's a huge technical debt that slows development and has created a lot of frustration.

Developers don't really have access to technologies (Kafka, Cassandra, etc.). If you need something, just send an email and wait. Things that should take days take weeks.

Does any of this sound lean?

This code-monkeyism approach is a long tradition here. Developers are at the bottom of the food chain and are replaced yearly. Others make sure they get the yearly bonuses on time!

Developers – beware!

Rob, the CEO, knows all about it.

Mid-management should be replaced by hands-on technicals. Some managers and directors here are actively failing development – they should be kicked out ASAP.

And although Product rules, Agoda is in bad shape. There's no innovation, just copying features from others.

This year, 2018, is a money-time opportunity for the competitors.