Workday

Good work-life balance for some teams. Great benefits. Good salaries. Good snacks program.

People: Some nice people, some very arrogant and toxic people, depending on which team you join.

Technology: The core application is a monolithic one, with old technology for the teams working in it, except for some new teams that are using modern technologies. They are trying to update the technologies used, but this is moving very slowly.

If you end up working in the monolithic app, you will experience all the drawbacks of a monolithic application, like:

• Massive codebase that is really hard to understand
• Hundreds of developers working in the same codebase
• Pipeline blocked most of the time
• Tricky to debug, takes some time
• Poor test coverage
• Bugs can slip out easily, etc…

If you will work with XO, their proprietary language, it's not that bad as a concept, but it's not implemented in a developer-friendly way; it has pros and cons.

XO Pros is that it helps building features quickly.

XO Cons: Takes lots of time to learn it. It limits your thinking to the capabilities it has, which are limited compared to any other language. Tools around it are not great; for example, the code review tool is not good. The automation framework built on top of it is also very bad to work on. The UI for development is not developer-friendly, which is basically inside the browser and UI-based.

People - details Managers Hell: I had bad luck and joined two different teams in which I didn't have a good time. I have seen very poor soft skills, especially communication skills among senior people and managers within my team. I didn’t find respect, I wasn’t valued, and I didn’t find psychological safety, which is very important for a successful team. Instead, I found finger-pointing, blaming, and undermining others.

I have worked with two managers. The first one was fake, too formal, a kind of person who gives too many instructions which he doesn't follow half of them. A kind of manager that makes you feel the 1-1 meeting is something you need to prepare for and worry about. He used a Google Doc to track what we said and ask about it next time, which gave the meeting a formal style, which is not good for 1-to-1 meetings. He had very poor communication skills; he would joke about people's mistakes rather than trying to give constructive feedback.

The second manager was worse. He looked very nice, funny, and friendly, until any mistake happened or anything that he didn't like. He turned to the other face with an aggressive communication style, blaming, and comparing to others. All the things that are not recommended for professional communication, he was doing. He had an offensive and harsh communication style that would leave you feeling offended. Some of our meetings would turn into arguments, shouting, and blaming games to determine whose fault it was.

After some time working with this manager, I would go to work feeling anxious all the time, just thinking that I could have done something wrong that would result in him talking to me in an unpleasant way.

Working under these two managers at Workday is considered the worst time in my life, which turned my hope of working in a great place into a nightmare.

Disrespect and Exclusion Being in these two teams, I didn’t feel much inclusion and respect. I was different in that I don't like going out for their outings, I don't like parties or fun the way they see it. I don’t like drinking, and I don’t talk much about other things than work. I was looked at like I was weird. The culture they advertise talks about things like valuing employees and inclusion. But the true and actual culture is different. There isn’t much stress on applying this culture.

I was advised by my manager to try to mingle more and talk more about any nonsense, and to go out with the team for drinks. He didn’t really understand my personality and was as if asking me to change my personality to fit more into the company. Once he mentioned that this is how it is at Workday and this is what I need to do to fit the fun culture. He didn’t understand that every person has fun in a different way.

Other than managers, I have seen senior and principal engineers who don’t respect others, talk about others behind their backs, and are not patient. All of these things are missing from them, which are necessary for someone with such a senior position, making me wonder how they were promoted. They were hard workers and have been in the company for some time, but that is not enough for someone to be promoted; a senior person also needs to be a role model and be able to mentor others.

Once, one of the senior managers had an org meeting and was bragging and joking about how much he cursed, which just reminded me of high school. I just wanted to tell him, “Come on, grow up” - how immature!

Not everyone that tells jokes and is laughing with others all the time fits to be a manager. A manager's most important skill is to communicate and to coach. If someone is very good in the product, or very organized and active, but doesn't have these two important skills, they will end up with people running from their team and from the company.

Another thing: not everyone that has been in the company for some time and wants to be a manager should be let to be one, without checking these two important skills.

To promote people, they must show very good communication skills with people above them and people below them in level.

The quality of people you hire is very important.

In addition to good benefits, soft skills and communication skills are very important for a great workplace.

Work more on applying the core values. Include respecting and accepting others as they are, and not enforcing a specific way of the values.

Be more strict, specifically with managers, on enforcing the core values.

Give more training about respecting others, how to give feedback, how to handle others' mistakes, coaching, and leadership.