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Flawed Processes, Flawed Values: A Culture of Fear and Mistrust

Software Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at C3.ai for 2 years
March 22, 2019
Redwood City, California
1.0
Doesn't RecommendPositive OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros
  • Great coworkers
  • Good mission
  • Free lunch
  • Nice office
  • Fun sports events
Cons

All of the problems I've faced here seem to be the result of poor leadership:

  • The CEO's decisions are final and non-negotiable (regarding both culture and business).
  • The management style is archaic, stemming from fear and mistrust of employees. For instance, engineers must log every minute of their work and are hardly allowed to speak with other employees outside of their team unless explicit permission is granted by management and a "ticket" is filed for the meeting to capture the time spent speaking to outsiders. Engineering management has no idea how to lead people properly; the "apps" team management is especially clueless and ineffective.
  • There's a "no work from home" policy, which isn't the best but is fine since all employees were told before being hired. The problem with this, however, is that employees are only given 5 sick days per year and are not allowed to work if caught being sick. Got a cold, yet can still get work done at home? Nope, take a sick day, stop working. Out of sick days? Pretend not to be sick when you come into the office or take PTO. Out of PTO? Don't get sick or don't get paid.
  • Some employees, including the person at the front desk, are treated like garbage. I've seen execs randomly yell at subordinates in front of everyone for virtually no reason, embarrassing them terribly.
  • C3's mission is overall good, but for a company that began by focusing on the energy industry in order to combat climate change, our customers nowadays are pretty heavily skewed towards Oil & Gas companies.
Advice to Management

Hire good people and leave them alone. Management seems far too intent on controlling how people work than trusting its employees to do the job better than they could themselves.

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