HashiCorp

From an engineering point of view, everyone is incredibly intelligent and kind.

It's quite hard to find someone rude, although egos have been on the rise.

It's a diverse company; at least, it seems to be pushing quite strongly in this direction recently, although this is not really true for the upper hierarchy.

1. The company became very “corporate,” especially after the IPO.

2. Values are more buzzwords and hiring traps. Employees are expected to uphold them, but the company itself does not.

3. There's very little communication internally or a common vision between teams and efforts. It's an internal race to see which team is ahead.

4. Processes are a hellhole. There's likely a three-layer process to get any sort of work done.

5. There's a huge difference in treatment between American and rest-of-the-world employees, almost like second-class citizens. Most “benefits” are constitutionally given to EU employees (so not really benefits), while other EU legal benefits are overseen and ignored by the company (a lawsuit waiting to happen).

6. When it comes to bonuses, they are planned with the USA in mind, so bonuses for other countries are much diluted. Sometimes it will actually cost you more than what you’ll receive (because it's literally a bet in the dark for us).

Promotions are slow, especially if you're in a timezone far from all decision-making meetings (US West).

Acknowledge and respect that other countries work differently from the USA. Words are cheap, so act to show caring. Stop concentrating top management in the West Coast. Treat your employees as you treat your investors.

Be human with on-call rotation; give people days off or compensation back.

Cut the process. Being secure is one thing; what we have is paranoid, getting-in-the-way, unjustifiable annoyance that forces people to go through back doors to get stuff done.