Pennylane

The team seems focused in delivering good software. There's a lot of tools and support available to produce good software. The developer experience was great.

Met a lot of good people, very smart. The interview process was excellent! Empathetic people all the way. The business is very interesting and it seems to have a bright future.

First, after going through the on-boarding weeks and handling a few small features, I am told by my manager that I should be fixing bugs and providing support (firefighting). This pretty much occupied the time that I spent in this company during the trial period (3 months). I did as I was told. Handled plenty of tickets raised by the support team and learned along the way. Then I am told that my trial period is going to be extended. I get told by my manager that technically there are no doubts about my competency, but they still want to see me in a project working with other team members to see how it would go. Then I need to sign a document so that the trial period is extended. This was very weird, it was not my fault, but I agreed to sign the document nevertheless.

Meanwhile, I am bullied by two team members and before talking to my manager I expressed my concerns to them politely and constructively. This is not well seen by my manager and is used as an excuse later on to end my trial. I am also told by my manager that during my firefighting weeks that I could pick other things to context switch a little so that I don't end up tired of providing support and fixing bugs. I always remained firefighting though. Then the firefighting period ends, I am picking other tasks, but then more than 10 support tickets pop up in our board. Next week, I get blamed that I should have responded to them and I get terminated the week after.

Another thing used as a reason to terminate me: during the week that I didn't respond to the support tickets, I missed a few meetings (could only have been 2 max, the standups were always optional). This was true, and I could have done better. Still, I was a victim of thyroid cancer 5 years ago, which makes it occasionally really hard to wake up early without feeling tired which contributed to this. I didn't want to expose my condition, and I felt forced to do so. I got crucified very quickly. I've never shown any malice, and in my humble opinion, this is the pure definition of injustice. I felt constantly afraid of being genuine.