Vanta

The company builds remote work into its culture.

The level I joined was different than I was led to believe during the interview process.

Once I joined, I quickly learned my team had an extremely toxic culture. Discussions were based on seniority, not on open discussion, nor were they data driven. I was overtly personally attacked by certain team members and even the team's manager on multiple occasions. When I shared feedback on issues actively blocking my onboarding initiatives, I was met with scathing responses, outright bullying, and a total lack of ownership, both of issues at the team level and on issues directly caused by team members themselves.

I learned within a few weeks that engineers preferred leaning back on comfortable, known patterns instead of using the correct tools and processes for problem solving, even if it led to increased maintenance costs, developer time expenditure, and overall lower system quality and functionality. This at least partially explains why the tech stack was in such a disastrous state during my time on the team. I could forgive this fact if the team were open and engaged, but they proved to not only be the opposite, but to actively punish opposing viewpoints instead of fostering them, opting to play favorites with team members.

Ultimately, it was not an environment I felt safe reporting blockers or giving feedback of any kind. During my debrief, my manager immediately turned my feedback against me, so I did not provide any other feedback.

For new hires, review onboarding practices and check in on new hires, similar to practices conducted industry wide. For employees at large, check in on teams to ensure its members and managers are conducting themselves professionally.