Engaging Work, Great People - Engineering Manager Moneytree (Japan) Employee Review

Remote work. Twenty days' holiday. You get them until you've been there six months. If working from home is your main priority, this ticks that box. You'll need to visit the office now and again, but that counts as business travel if you live far enough away. Worth checking the distance requirements though. There was someone who lived three hours away but wasn't allowed to claim anything back.

Morale is poor. Most people seem burnt out. I suspect quite a few are on stress leave, though it's hard to say for certain. Communication is lacking. There's a clear divide between favoured employees and the rest. A small group seems immune to accountability. Some people get promoted into key roles without the necessary skills, experience, or training. Budget always appears for vendors with ties to senior leadership, but backfilling teams is apparently impossible. I'd hoped things might improve after the acquisition. They've actually got worse.

First of all there is a great team of very smart and passionate people that you can learn from. Small cross functional teams with flat hierarchy. Overall you’re given a lot of freedom and responsibility if you’re up for it. You can also structure your work and tasks very freely and decide on your own schedule. Overall autonomy and self reliance is valued and encouraged, which I prefer over being micromanaged. The work style is remote first, but you can decide yourself if you want to work in the office or from home. You can also work from abroad for certain periods of time, if you wish. Compensation and benefits are also above average, with flexible hours and 20 paid days off, plus 10 sick days. Overall I think it’s a very good place to work at, that has enabled me to grow and learn a lot.

There is little guidance, which can be exhausting at times. Depending on the team you’re in, you’re team may get a lot of attention and high expectations, that needs you to justify your decisions over and over again. Resource and budget constraints may have you working on multiple tight deadline projects. For a company of this size there is also a lot of red tape and processes to follow, which can slow things down or make simple things overly complicated. There is also a lot of meetings and updates that need to be made to the wider company, that takes away a lot of time from doing actual work.