Workday

There was a dark point less than a year after I joined where I thought maybe I would be better off somewhere else. They had grown so rapidly that things were becoming chaotic, and we didn't have enough folks who knew the product well. We also had very demanding customer commitments. Even though I liked my team, I felt like I did not have the resources to be successful.

This all sounds like a con, but it's not, because shit happens. At some companies, nothing would ever change, and eventually, you would just give up and find a better job.

HOWEVER, at Workday, I have seen a coordinated effort from management (mid-level) from Dev, QA, and PM to get our product area back on track. This included changing people's roles so that their skills are maximized and adding additional headcount to fill open roles (who have the right skill set).

I have also seen team re-shuffling (in order to increase cohesiveness), as well as managers on all teams being aligned in goals and counseling their teams to ensure we all work together as well as possible and are as successful as possible.

Things are not perfect, but our direct managers have made swift efforts to address things that are going wrong (with support of higher-level managers). I have confidence that as issues crop up, our managers in dev/qa/pm will be able to work together to make things right.

Additional Pros:

• Management (high level) has made significant investment in providing training to development teams on a multitude of things (product area, agile principles, etc.).
• We are constantly being surveyed on various topics so that management can get a better idea of our needs.
• Pay was so-so when I arrived, but I guess management realized that they needed to pay better. I saw a generous adjustment to get me to a more competitive pay (and I didn't need to ask).
• I really like my teammates. Even when we have disagreements, we can ultimately find common ground because we truly want to do the right thing for Workday and the customers. It is like our north star.
• Managers got feedback from the folks working for them. I don't know the exact details, but high-scoring public managers were publicly recognized, and folks seem to know who the low-scoring managers are through word of mouth. This has put pressure on those managers who got poor marks to do better.
• Promotions do not appear SUPER hard to get if your boss thinks you are a high performer. You might have to jump some hurdles or put in some time, but it's not like it's not going to happen.
• There seems to also be lateral mobility between QA/PM/Dev (depending on skillset).
• People are, for the most part, smiling, happy, nice, and friendly, which really brightens your mood.
• Lots of employee-centric events. I participated in Bring Your Parent to Workday and Bring Your Dog to Workday, and they were a blast.
• Lots of wellness offerings (new workout center, meditation classes, etc.).
• People who are passionate. You will likely find some sort of Workday-sponsored group/event in something you are interested in (Volunteering, Ping Pong, Book Clubs, etc.).
• If you work in App Dev, you may never need to buy another t-shirt, as we are constantly getting them for some event or another.

Management seems to be following their own version of agile for the way they run their teams (e.g., fast iterations and fail fast). That is good and bad.

They are willing to try new things, but it can also be distracting because it feels like there is always something new coming down the pipeline or scrapping some way of doing something, etc. You definitely have to be able to embrace change.

As a side note, the pro side of this is they are not scared to throw something out the window that is not working for people, and they are open to trying new ways to do things if it could make things better in some way.

I've seen some arrogant managers make some doofus decisions despite getting an absurd amount of feedback that it is a bad idea (and yet they do it anyway). Workday is not a perfect utopia, and these people exist, but I'm thinking/hoping that there are fewer of them at Workday.

I have had the blessing of working with good managers.

Not just my manager, but the managers of my coworkers on my team too (dev mgrs and pm mgr).

All of them have to be good for positive momentum.

One bad manager can spoil forward progress, and one bad manager can ensure your talent walks out the door (or fails to meet their potential).

Please stay focused on rewarding the good managers and identifying the bad ones. The bad ones should not be tolerated.