Indeed

Stellar health plan, great perks as a remote employee (snacks delivered quarterly, start-up money to set up home office). Even more perks at Austin (free breakfast, lunch, coffee bar, too much to list). Pay and bonuses are outstanding. Many great people working there.

I was subjected to the dreaded Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) after just 7 months at the company, then was let go a month later.

Quarterly reviews are nice to gauge your standing, but I never realized how quickly you could be cut loose if you don't meet expectations in your first 2 quarters.

How did that happen so fast? Because my team was all about speed: speed was their primary focus; I was expected to code fast, and I simply wasn't fast enough. (Never mind the fact that I delivered almost zero bugs while I was there...)

I never got an explanation as to WHY speed was so important, either. There were no deadlines, no imminent sales demos, nothing I could see that would demand such speed. As far as I could tell, it was all about being fast for fast's sake; in other words, bragging rights.

What was most upsetting was that I was a remote employee, and I had no direct management guidance or mentoring during my tenure. I was just expected to know how to do everything, and if I didn't know, learn quickly. I wasn't quick enough.

The atmosphere felt very unsafe. I didn't feel like I could fail, because the failures would simply be recorded and used against me in the next review. I didn't feel like I could ask for help because it would just highlight that I wasn't up to par with their standards.

I was very much on my own, and for a remote employee, this is death; there is no chance for success.

I honestly question the monetary decision of investing so much money in hiring a software engineer only to let them go less than a year later, especially without any mentoring. Even after my managers realized I didn't know as much as they thought I did, they didn't see any reason to grow me into the role. When you make billions of dollars a year, I guess you can do that.

My advice to future Indeed software engineers: know your stuff before you sign on with Indeed. You won't last long if you think they'll help you ramp up.

No one was invested in me or my success at the company. Figure out a way to mentor new employees over the long term.