Toxic Leadership and Empty Promises — Worst Career Decision. Avoid at Any Cost
Pros
The only positive thing about this company is the colleagues. The engineers and teammates are talented, supportive, and genuinely good people. Unfortunately, they are stuck in a terrible system created by incompetent leadership
Cons
Where do I even begin. Management lies during hiring. During interviews they promise things like no weekend support, proper work-life balance, yearly increments, and good benefits. After you join, you quickly realize none of this is true. These are simply tactics used to attract candidates. Once you’re inside, everything changes. Terrible project structure (MY vs SG politics). If you’re based in Malaysia, you’ll likely work on projects for Singapore clients. The SG team sits with the client and takes all the credit, while the MY team does the heavy lifting remotely. When things go well, the SG team claims the success. When something goes wrong, the MY team gets blamed. Recently, management suddenly decided that MY staff must work on the client site full time. Employees were informed one day before through an email sent on Sunday night, expecting everyone to report Monday morning. No discussion, no planning, no respect for people’s lives. Also, there are no transportation claims or support even when MY staff are forced to work on SG-related projects. Project managers are incompetent. Most of the project managers have no leadership or organizational skills. There is no proper planning, no clear priorities, and no accountability. Their only response to problems is blaming engineers. Toxic team leadership. Some team leads operate through fear and pressure instead of leadership. Expect late-night calls, weekend messages, and last-minute demands like being asked on Friday evening to work through the weekend. When something goes wrong, the focus is never solving the issue — it’s about finding someone to blame. Even if the problem is caused by poor management decisions, engineers are pressured to admit fault. Salary increments are basically fake promises. During recruitment they promise yearly increments. In reality, increments rarely happen unless you constantly chase HR for months. Even after review cycles, nothing changes. The common excuse is that “the company is not doing well.” Yet mysteriously, when you resign, suddenly they can offer counteroffers or increments. Bonus distribution is completely non-transparent. Employees working on the same projects receive different outcomes without explanation. For example, SG teams may receive bonuses while MY teams receive nothing despite doing the majority of the work. Benefits are extremely poor. Medical insurance is almost useless. The GP limit is around RM1500, which is extremely low compared to industry standards. Leave policies are ridiculous. You cannot carry forward annual leave. If you don’t use it, they force an encashment calculation that feels unfair. Even worse, the company calculates payouts by dividing your annual salary by 365 days, which significantly reduces the amount compared to normal industry practices. Resignation process is manipulative. When you resign, management suddenly becomes very interested in you. Multiple people including senior leadership will call you trying to convince you to stay with promises that should have been honored earlier. At the same time, they may refuse to let you use your remaining leave before your final day. There were also attempts to delay paperwork like NOC beyond the official notice period, creating unnecessary stress for employees trying to move on. No career growth. Performance reviews feel meaningless. Promotions and recognition are rare and inconsistent. Overall, the company culture feels disorganised , political, and disrespectful to employees.
