Pros
I could tackle this a dozen ways. I’ll start with the punchline: My director was required to formally apologize to me on a call after an investigation by HR. It was the same call, with the director still on, that I was notified I was being let go because there had been irrevocable harm done to the working relationship between my director and me. My director suddenly, literally all in one day, introduced critiques and performance corrections into our weekly check-ins. There had been some “tweak your approach on this” before, certainly. But never a missed deliverable or an under-delivery. (Also never a deadline that I didn’t beat by days.) But these were unique for their being evaluations of work not assigned to me and work not assigned to anyone. Within a few weeks I formally requested HR’s evaluation of things. Tricky business building a case of “this new, critically evaluated deliverable that I didn’t deliver is not an industry standard anywhere — what I delivered was what the director requested and was content with until now.” (Stuff from months prior was suddenly being critically addressed, I assume to add gravity and longevity to the case being built against me.) The difficulty was made easier, however, by the emails and Slack messages explicitly communicating “this is exactly what I was looking for, thank you!” The three weeks of the investigation I genuinely was attempting to fill in any gaps that I might have had and hadn’t been aware of. I communicated with teammates discreetly. It was a teammate that pointed out that the director had felt that they should be the only person addressing strategic UX needs for Dragos. I hadn’t realized I had stepped on toes whatsoever. The scenario felt a little clearer after that. The director had been on a two week honeymoon and in the meantime I’d had extra time to work on “strategic projects.” We’d previously been encouraged to keep a 2/3rds tactical and 1/3rd strategic load. The CTO had asked questions that pertains to the strategic work so I had brought up the project. I’d stated I would prioritize the UX departments priorities, as determined by the director, but that if the CTO would like I could get the strategic work into first drafts pretty quickly. I was excited about the work, of course, and I was aware that if I did well that I would be positively positioned organizationally, of course. (I’m making obvious statements because I’m not going to pretend that I wasn’t trying to impress leadership. I also genuinely take seriously respecting the integrity of command chains and I will never allow myself to slack on departmental deliverables to pursue acclaim. I was delivering on both.) A week after the conversation in-which the teammate illuminate that I’d apparently caused the UX Director to feel threatened by my strategic work, the UX Director presented a near identical design ops strategy to the one I’d been working on. They are least equally addressed the need and were equally feasible. The next two weeks went by with much ado about nothing and finally I was informed that HR wanted to meet, if it was convenient. Immediate alarm, because the entire environment felt out of ordinary by then. I felt relieved though when the HR head began with, “We would like [the director] to apologize to you. We do believe that many of your assertions were warranted.” So, it felt otherworldly when I was informed I was being let go two sentences after the director’s apology. That was all about a year ago. I was laid off about a month before the tech layoffs began in earnest. I had great interviews out of the gate, then I was lost in the shuffle for awhile. Hit some interview records for my friend group though, 73 interviews across dozens of businesses. Made it to final interviews seven times, three eventually got back to me that the role was actually not going to be hired for after all. Two communicated that I was their second pick but I’d been beat out by someone with 8+ years experience for jobs listed as requiring 4+. (I’m arguably only now at 5. 6+ if you count long stretches of freelancing relevant work, though not only explicitly UX.) I only received one offer and took it. Better title, $5k pay cut. The out-of-work stage lasted nearly 7 months. I was legitimately working at an Amazon warehouse just to keep from bleeding quite as fast, financially. (Custody battle, etc, general living expenses, etc. Five Hail Marys, amen.) Loved many of the people that worked there. Was gutted to see the layoffs recently. The Product department is a mess, UX inherited the mess, dev gets stacked with tech debt and they attempt to battle it with an army of engineers and developers. The CTO has no experience leading a product, (quite literally), and I think there’s maybe one of ten product managers who has product experience. (They’re all some form of domain expert in OT or ICS.) It was an absolute mess. It just happened to have some of the smartest people I’ve met strung throughout the organization, trying to duct tape it all together. Steer clear. Heavily consider hiring former employees from Dragos.
Cons
First time founders, under prepared, in over their heads, experts in OT/ICS security and not in product development, road mapping, or data informed decision making. Shockingly horrific UX Director, if they’re still employed. Happily disconnected with them on LinkedIn and haven’t looked them up once.
