Klaviyo

Lots of very smart and empathetic peers, although many are either being fired for their expense or leaving on their own due to the toxic culture.

Upper and C-level management has turned into one of the most toxic groups of management staff that I think I've ever seen.

Individual contributors are harassed to keep up pull request, PR comments, and other numbers higher than their peers due to the implicit stack-ranking. Review cycles are extremely stressful for managers and ICs alike because of the unsympathetic council of people treating workers like numbers.

The push towards AI is both too late and in the wrong areas. Product managers are caught between being told what to build and being told to build it in less than a quarter without actually having time to develop the product, and bugs and incidents are at an all-time high as a result.

It feels like the C-suite got very fortunate with the excellent product that Klaviyo is coming to fruition during COVID when there was a massive switch away from brick and mortar stores, and they have used that success to mistakenly believe they are culture geniuses and know how to get engineers to work better.

Frankly, I believe it's too late for Klaviyo with this trajectory.

There are probably 3-4 years of riding the excellent product out before it turns into Amazon-lite, which it already nearly is.

The RTO mandate will definitely escalate and cause even more exits of the top talent.

The only people left will be people in a 20 mile radius of Boston who are okay with being treated this way at work.

Expecting greatness and giving in return only high-pressure, low-reward days will eventually alienate everyone.

I sorely miss my amazing team, but it wasn't worth it to stay anymore.