Good work, good team, but no real engineering leadership - Engineering Manager Bellese Technologies Employee Review

I want to be specific here, because specificity is what actually helps job seekers. This isn't venting. It's a documented account of what happened to me. **I was hired by a strong leader who then left.** The program director who brought me on had been with the company for years. She was excellent. She was clear about what the team needed and she explicitly set me up to address the program's primary pain point: release and deployment management. When she left in August, I absorbed significant operational responsibilities with no formal handoff of expectations. I filled 5 to 6 open roles, conducted interviews, onboarded new hires, approved time and expenses, and managed professional development requests. I helped keep the program running. **I delivered on what I was asked to do.** Over roughly six months, I overhauled deployment and release practices. I revamped templates, centralized Confluence checklists, eliminated redundant handoffs, and dramatically improved cross-team communication across engineering, QE, and platform operations. I was responsible for 8 direct reports spanning engineering, QA, data, and ops, plus about the same number of outsourced contractors. Toward the end of last year I had just begun transitioning into broader EM work, including an Engineering Best Practices framework and a Code Quality initiative to baseline repositories and define measurable improvement goals. **The year-end review was a setup.** In November, I completed my self-review in good faith. My director's position hadn't been backfilled yet, so my review was conducted by the COO. I documented exactly what I had accomplished and what I planned next, but the COO who conducted the review did not engage with my accomplishments. My self-review, which I invested significant time to get right, wasn't even mentioned once. Instead, he told me what he thought I should have been working on for the past year. These were things that had never been communicated to me at any point during the year. He did have some valid points about what the team needed, but it was the first time I was hearing any of it as an expectation or priority of mine. **Then a new program director started in January.** In the roughly two months before I was let go, we had exactly two 1:1s, and one of them was one I scheduled myself. There was no feedback, no coaching, and no indication that anything was wrong. He made no attempt to understand what I had built or where I was headed. For someone managing a team of 20, that is not a leadership approach. It is an absence of one. **Then I was "let go"** On March 11th, I was invited to a "quick sync" with my director. I joined the call and HR was there (a tale as old as time, right?). Before greetings were even exchanged, he told me "Today will be your last day". I was honestly stunned. I sat for a minute in shock and when I finally asked why, I was told they weren't going to get into it on that call. No explanation. No notice. No severance. The only thing offered was that I "wasn't what the program needed right now." OK, understand technical pivots. I've been managing engineering teams for 12+ years now and am well aware of shifts to realign with business needs. That's fine. In this case, the program was shifting toward Pega Constellation, a React and CI/CD-aligned stack, which is a legitimate business direction. Again, I understand needs change, but the professional response to a potential skill gap is a conversation. It is an offer to get trained or certified, or at minimum a transition plan. It is not a silent exit after six months of zero leadership. My best guess as I try to self-rationalize this gut-punch is that the COO formed a negative impression of me during a review process built entirely on expectations he never communicated. That framing was passed to a new director before he ever had a real chance to work with me, and he acted on it without doing his job as a people manager. **And it continues.** After my termination, I reached out twice to the Director of People Operations requesting an exit interview. It is a basic professional courtesy that would have let me understand what happened. She has not responded to either request. Not a decline. Not a "we don't do those." Just silence. That silence is the most honest thing this company has communicated to me. **If you're considering a role here**, ask who your direct manager will be and what their 1:1 cadence actually looks like. Ask what the performance management process looks like in practice, not just on paper. Ask what happens if your program director leaves mid-year. Push for clarity before you sign. The job market is hard right now and I understand the pressure to take what's available. But there ARE employers out there who will treat you like a professional. I'd hit "Next" on this one.