Toxic Environment Drowning in Tech Debt - Anonymous employee AboutGolf Employee Review

2.0
Aug 13, 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The boots on the ground are some of the nicest people in the tech industry.

Cons

The CEO has such a frail ego that he spent the first 20 minutes of the last all hands draconically explaining to each person in the company how their first priority is to respond to his personal Teams messages and requests. This is after he put a demand through lower leadership that anytime a person is on a Teams call with the CEO that they must keep their camera on, keep eyes focused and must not do any other work or multitask. Most of the engineering team has either been fired or quit within the last year and those remaining are too despondent to stick up for themselves or any other team members. If you want to work for a silver spoon fed CEO that would rather spend his time distracting a team mired in massive tech debt with his whims and stories of being a Bellevue Club Member since birth and has never heard the word No, this is the place. (C level and leadership is underqualified and are promoted yes men.) Pay is also below standard rate and not comparable to most companies.

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AboutGolf Response
2y
Appreciate your feedback. I would normally try to be empathetic around everyone’s personal views on their experiences working at aboutGOLF, but the lack of sincerity around the facts here warrants a response. Venting is one thing, but not being truthful is another. Let's start with your comments about spending 20 minutes on the last all hands talking about how the first priority is to respond to me. In the last all hands in July, I spoke 2:15 minutes of 30 minutes. None of it was about communications. In the June all hands, I spoke for 7 minutes of the 66 minutes. I showed a pyramid of the best way to communicate with each--starting with in-person (emergency/priority) then video, then phone then teams. Not one point was mentioned about how to communicate with me, it was about setting some guides around how we can effectively work together with the tools and resources at our disposal. Next, most of the engineering team left due to previous engineering leadership--the same person who hired you. Then you quit after a month on the job. The VP begged to have you hired back due to losing momentum despite the overwhelming dissension only to have you quit again just a few weeks later. Your unprovoked attack on my personal background also warrants a response. I am a first-generation immigrant who came to the US when I was 10. My parents risked everything financially to come to the US for me. Does that make me a silver spoon? Perhaps my kids have a pair because my wife and I have earned every bit of our financial success through hard work and multiple economic recessions. I never came from money, and neither did my parents. The fact that you would attack my character on Glassdoor lacks tact. For well over 6 months, it would have been impossible to distract an engineering team under a VP who discreetly moved his entire team from Microsoft Teams to Slack without the knowledge of the rest of the company and management. Our communications were never responded to. If you believe bifurcating a company and siloing critical teams is a good barometer of success, I suggest you spend some time with non-engineer employees of the company and ask them this very question. Lastly, people are promoted because of merit and because they challenge themselves as well as me on how we should make the company better. Best wishes in your next role and hope you find a fit that makes sense.

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Cons

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