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Dog and pony show

Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Cloudflare for less than 1 year
April 28, 2019
1.0
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros
  • Educational for junior specialists
  • Interesting product
  • Recognizable brand, that attracts smart people
Cons
  • Management varies from under-powered to absurdly unqualified.
  • Promotion is based on loyalty, not on skills.
  • There is no career ladder.
  • There is no professional development, and no budget for learning. There are no guarantees they will pay towards your travel expenses even if you speak at a professional conference.
  • There are no professional bands; salary is not based on merit, hence the pay gap is often unbelievably huge.
  • A very siloed culture amplifies already significant technical debt.
  • There are lots of politics.
  • Blog-driven development, which usually has nothing to do with your job. You will have to clean up the mess after the rock-stars move to new shiny projects.
  • Not an equal chance employer: if you don’t kiss the right place, you are doomed to be treated as a second-class citizen.
  • Communication is often problematic, even within teams. Cross-team collaboration is almost non-existent.
  • Stolen ideas and claiming undue credit is not an accident; some employees intentionally sabotage their colleagues.
  • The people team is useless.
  • The CEO rules by intimidation; the COO is weak.
  • They are cheap on everything: from tiny desks to business flights without baggage.
  • Most of the talent does not stay longer than 2 years or waits for the IPO to quit shortly after.
  • Leadership asks employees to write positive reviews on Glassdoor. On bad reviews, they comment to bring it up with your manager, but managers usually ignore any feedback from employees.
  • Benefits are poor; equity is meaningless.
  • Burnout is common.
  • After realizing they are a company of white dudes, they started intentionally hiring minorities to improve the numbers, but they fail to attract anyone senior.
  • Belittling employees that left the company.
Advice to Management

Replace the unqualified management and fire the few not-so-brilliant jerks instead of enabling them.

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