Cockroach Labs reviews

In the past several years, company culture and leadership deteriorated dramatically. From an open culture that invested in building the right technical solutions and in its people, it became the opposite – highly political, top down and toxic, much more than I would expect at a company this size. Facing financial challenges, leadership over-corrected by pausing engineering hiring, laying off 15%, including losing all the people that were once responsible for culture development, and cutting most/all enrichment and development programs (e.g., Flex Fridays). Remote work is actively eliminated (attrition among remote workers is high, and hiring stopped). The Product org, especially on the Database side, is led by people who lack Database, PM or Management experience. This means that it is difficult to hire or keep strong PMs (many have left). As a consequence, product and resource allocation decisions are done by Engineering leadership (who lack Product experience) and especially by VP of Engineering (who lacks technical expertise) and by Senior Directors (who are mostly focused on making the VP happy) in a closed small room, often followed by years of execution that leads nowhere or misses the mark. No one is held accountable for these misses – the value of these projects isn’t actually being measured as the org moves to the next big bet or fire, the opposite, people who initiated them get promoted to Directors and Senior Directors. Lack of proper planning, focus and product leadership leads to overwhelmed engineering teams. Critical areas are understaffed or unstaffed. The product is extremely complex but observability teams were completely gutted, making debugging production issues difficult and the support burden extremely high. Larger projects frequently don’t get to the finish line, faced with the fire or account emergency de-jour. Burnout ensues and many strong engineers leave. Management saying that attrition is normal for industry is not fooling anyone, as people see their strongest colleagues leave or get sacked. Questioning management decisions is actively discouraged and very few remain that are willing to do so (seeing other people who cared enough to do this in the past being laid off or ending up leaving). For Toronto specifically, the site lead is known for creating a highly-political culture, actively discouraging asking management questions, and systematically ousting people who work closely with him and, in many cases, enabled his success. Compensation isn’t competitive (unless maybe if you joined before series D). There is no 401K match, no bonuses, small refreshes following a weird vesting structure. Outside the US, base isn’t competitive either.

Past Reduction in Force (RIF): October marked our first RIF, a decision long postponed, leading to unequal impacts across teams. While it was a tough call, it primarily affected lower performers, reflecting a necessary adjustment rather than a systemic issue. Benefit Adjustments: Over the years, some benefits have been scaled back. While initially generous to a fault, this recalibration was necessary to prevent abuse and ensure sustainability. Flex Fridays, for example, needed clearer boundaries to maintain productivity. Return to Office (RTO): With a current 50/50 split between remote and on-site employees, the company is gradually pivoting towards an RTO model. While this shift may not align with everyone's preferences, it's a strategic move considering the rare instances of remote-first companies successfully going public. Competition and Differentiation: Despite facing giants like AWS, Oracle, and Google, our value propositions and unique solutions enable us to hold our own in the market. It's a competitive edge that we're constantly investing in.