Low morale, poor culture, leadership who do not lead
Pros
The people at the front line make the difference at Actian. Some loyal to the core, they put up with the disdain shown by management and executives and take pride in doing a good job, serving customers whether that be in tech support, sales, presales or admin.
Cons
Too much to say - it all stems from too many VPs and a CEO who shows contempt for employees and customers. CEO and executives seem to spend a ton of money on flying around the world to attend a series of ludicrously useless meetings. Workers at the ground level are left with zero budgets to develop products or invest in internal infrastructure while the execs would rather keep British Airways and United Airlines in business. As a result, there is no platform despite the messaging, the whole company is kept going by a loyal customer base who use legacy products like INGRES and PSQL and get screwed over on price when licenses are renewed. I guess some poor company has to pay for the lifestyle of the execs. Despite repeated efforts to show willing, the management team is unable to treat workers like human beings and tell them what is going on. The answer to most problems seems to get solved by hiring more incompetent people, more directors and VPs with over-inflated egos and job titles who only want to pass comment on what others should do but not do any of the work themselves. But hey, we get the odd treat: a free breakfast here, a free lunch there and the odd social gathering. Awesome.
