Smartsheet

Many of the people who work there are honest and hardworking. While most people at the lower levels of engineering are amazing, open, and highly professional, the same cannot be said for upper management.

The company pretends to listen to their workers and had a practice that led to forced firing of 10% of the workforce each year based upon a bell curve (they called the 9 box) regardless of the employee performing their job to required levels.

A few directors and above would regularly make up stories of why an employee might not fit within a certain box even though they don't even know the individual or have ever worked with them. They would then double down and sell it as if it was true. When they are called out, they would just say that it was their opinion but the damage is done since others would then start using what was said as truth to save their own teams from getting moved to lower boxes.

They have a written publicly that Senior Engineers II and above are not required to continue to grow; however, many talented engineers were fired with the excuse that they were not growing.

My opinion is that this practice was to make the stock look better before year end fiscal statements. They fired 10% (leaning heavy on higher paid individuals) and waited to fill those positions until after the year end fiscal statements were released. Several times, they had to keep telling managers to use the term "performance based" to justify mass layoffs.

Now that they are NOT publicly traded (no more stock) anymore, their overall compensation package will struggle to bring in or keep top talent. Many engineers are leaving even though some of the top level leadership were removed.

Poor leadership ruins companies. If you have to hide your intentions, you should really reevaluate your morals and ethics. If you truly are letting someone go because of performance issues, then it would be obvious to manager. You shouldn't have to keep repeating the words "performance based" decisions because they don't make it true.

As a manager, I fired managers and ICs when it was truly performance based during the year without needing to wait until the best timing for fiscal year end. It is a normal part of business but don't lie about it.