Postman

There used to be genuinely strong people here, and that was probably the biggest draw at one point. Most of them have left, but you’ll still find a handful of smart ICs in the US who are trying to do the right thing.

Benefits and perks are decent enough.

The product also used to have real user love, which makes the current state more frustrating than anything else.

If you’re a SWE, PM, or in Design, I would seriously think twice.

Day-to-day work is largely driven by arbitrary deadlines and direction you may not agree with, but you’re expected to execute regardless. There’s very little room for principled product or engineering thinking. UX decisions are only made by the CEO that bypasses the people closest to the work.

Engineering culture is easily the weakest I’ve come across in my career. There’s no infra strategy, and everything feels stitched together with ad hoc pipelines and one-off solutions. There’s no real standardization across teams and weak observability, which makes debugging and operating systems harder than it needs to be. The “ship fast” mentality is brain rot, and things go out the door, but without quality, ownership, or long-term thinking. You’ll also end up working with some of the lowest-output India-based engineers.

There’s also a noticeable talent drain. Many of the stronger engineers and leadership have already left, and more seem to be on their way out. New hires come in and churn quickly once they realize the reality on the ground. The people who tend to stay longer are not necessarily the ones pushing the bar higher, which reinforces the cycle.

On top of that, the broader environment doesn’t help. RTO mandates, forced relocation, and ongoing layoffs create a constant sense of instability. The culture leans heavily toward micromanagement, and there’s a strong emphasis on visibility and optics over actual impact. From what I’ve seen, GTM teams are also leaving and suffering from a bad CRO.

There’s a lot of talk about becoming an “AI-native” company, but let's start with fundamentals. If you look at the OpenAIs that you admire, the reason their employees who are willing to work long hours or be in-office consistently isn’t because they’re forced to, it’s because they believe in what they’re building, feel respected, and see clear alignment between their effort and incentives.

Right now, the gap is cultural and structural. There’s a lack of trust, unclear strategy, and too much focus on optics instead of real execution. If the goal is to attract and retain strong talent, the focus should be on rebuilding credibility, empowering teams to make decisions, and aligning incentives in a way that makes people want to stay and contribute. But I know you dgaf. So good luck.