Great people, horrible CEO - Software Developer SnackCrate Employee Review

1.0
Dec 1, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The people who worked around me were generally nice.

Cons

The CEO is manipulative and overly controlling. He is unprofessional and frequently comments about illegal drugs, most notably ecstasy, which seems to come out of his mouth every month. He asked an Asian minority employee if he was a Chinese Nationalist :( He provided insufficient hardware to perform development tasks: an 8gb ram, 128 gb of storage, and when I filled it up, downloading our databases in the first week, he sent HR to tell me to `deal with it`. After finding repeated hacks live in our production compromising consumers' credit card information, he did not want to remove them but told us to stay focused on holiday advertising. After discussing his Ethical and Legal obligations, he said he'd talk with the Lawyers but wouldn't discuss any outcomes or disclose the breach with customers. After being hired for a Lead Developer Role, on my first day he said you are not going to have the lead title. He reduced my 'rank' on my first day before I was ever issued a computer. He frequently blames the development team for his personal lack of skill. He refuses to use GitHub correctly and actively makes hotfix updates using FTP alone without notifying the team. The code base is a dumpster fire, and they DO NOT CARE TO FIX IT! And if you comment about it in a non-positive manner at work they will send you to HR. The last straw: After finding another credit card key logger in production, I reset and pulled the environment with the latest GitHub changes. He started yelling in the office and blamed our entry-level developer and me. His hostility caused me to move the conversation outside to another meeting room. He explicitly said. 'I do not want you working on anything other than what I tell you to.' After explaining, I found an intruder and was protecting our customers. He threatened my job and fired me directly after. I totaled three months here and getting let go is the best part of the whole job. I'm extremely happy to be gone. Our node libraries' javascript code was actively being edited on the server. Any security researcher will tell you this is very bad. Based on how dismissive he was to concerns, there's a small bit of me that thinks he's aware and profiting off this illegally. But mostly, I think he's just a money/power-crazed bad actor. Keeping the customers secure on this site is NOT prioritized, and the level of unprofessional communication will forever live in my memory. It is important you or your loved ones DO NOT use or provide personal information to this site as I can 100% say as of writing this post, the site has a hack on it that is stealing CC information. I witnessed multiple times different departments talking about the CEO's poor leadership, and when he walked in, they would walk out to continue. He will ask you to work after hours and will still get pissed if you don't show up to work at 9 on the dot. When I was let go, my direct team members immediately told me they were envious and thought he was completely out of line. Wishing they could be let go too in effort to just get unemployment. I feel blessed that I never compromised my ethics or legal duty even when directly asked to do just that. The CEO will actively threaten your job to influence you to break the law and ignore illegal activity.

Explore other reviews about SnackCrate

5.0
Feb 4, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Fun work environment International procurement responsibilities

Cons

No cons, great start up

2.0
Apr 24, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I had a lot of fun working here for a few years. There were some great and talented people here and a lot of creative freedom. A small team made for a dynamic environment. Dog friendly office was a big perk as well.

Cons

I left this company a couple years ago, and I have kept up with what has happened since. With enough time and distance, I feel I can be honest: This company has gone so downhill. When I started, the corporate team had 15-20 people. It slowly dropped down to single digits, and all of the existing staff were expected to just pick up the slack for no additional pay. There is such a toxic cycle of understaffing and disorganization leading to no one being able to perform their job well, which leads to more resignations and firings. There is no structure, and any middle management in place is just for show. Every little decision has to run through the CEO. There are lots of smart people that have worked for SnackCrate, but no one is empowered to make any real decisions. The micromanagement can be cleverly disguised at times, but is ever present. The CEO is also the founder, and has never been able to let go of the start up mentality of being involved in everything, despite the company being 10 years old. Speaking of 10 years old, that is the level of maturity to expect. The company culture has always been borderline, but has become an increasingly toxic environment. There are less and less people in a position to correct the CEO's horrifying remarks, as he has fired them all. I watched a manager get sent home after telling the CEO not to call his team "r*tards". Constant comments are thrown around, degrading minorities, employees, and more, often disguised as jokes. As for "perks", there are none. SnackCrate hires almost exclusively entry level staff, and then provides the absolute bare minimum. Any perks such as unlimited PTO or summer Fridays are used as leverage and threats. It would not be unusual to get a message like "No one is allowed to take PTO in June". Overall, I had a good experience here for a while, but slowly realized how much the CEO was taking advantage of young professionals, offering no real growth, and no resources to actually work with. Save yourself the headache and don't let yourself get sucked in for like 55k.

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