Pros
My paychecks don’t bounce, I get to use my health insurance, and I don’t have to pay to park. In my eyes, these things are the bare minimum, not bragging rights. If you want something beyond basic survival, the tuition reimbursement seems to be a solid offering. I would love the opportunity to use it, but I can’t justify chaining myself to a burning dumpster for that long.
Cons
The consultants just finished their anonymous survey and ran some focus groups. The problem is that none of this is new. Issues have been raised for months. Leadership didn’t listen before, so it’s hard to believe a slide show from a third party will make them start now. I expect more “we heard you” theater followed by more of the same. In the meantime, attrition has picked up. The CEO has taken notice, but so far, the only action has been more of the same, nothing. Roles vacate and get backfilled quietly, often by people already in the right orbit. Pro tip, HR posts the required H1B notices in an out of the way 5th floor hallway. Go check them out! Once the consultants are gone, it will be back to management by slogan full-time. “Pressure is a privilege” – urgency is constant, support is optional. Burn a weekend and that’s grit; ask for clarity and that’s resistance to change. “You build it, you own it” – sounds empowering, but change deployment often feels like a ritual built on distrust. “No rules, rules” – really, it’s shifting, unwritten rules. Policies are created in closed rooms, and you’ll only learn them when you break them. “Feedback is a gift” usually translates to silence or a lecture about the “stages of grief.” On rare occasions, responses rationalize old decisions rather than re-examine them. “Fail fast” – instead of learning and adjusting, failure is reframed as “the plan was right, just misunderstood.” And on and on. Nothing ever gets done about issues that are raised. It’s part of the reason there are so many reviews here from engineers. Most of the managers are remote, so we rarely get to see them, and they barely bother interacting when they show up every 10-weeks. There is a lack of accountability at the top and a surplus of process at the bottom. Institutional knowledge keeps walking out the door. Collaboration is strongest when it’s informal between engineers. Once formalized, it sprouts ceremonies and stalls. Psychological safety is situational: speak candidly on the wrong topic and you’ll be recast as “not a team player.” But I saved the best for last. In my opinion, a return to office mandate is coming. Local tech leaders are being pushed to return to the office once a week to meet in person. New manager job postings are local only. But don’t worry, they “aren’t taking attendance." It is unclear how they expect these managers to meet with their teams in person without some form of RTO. TDI leadership's capacity for self-reflection is so bad, they outsourced it to consultants.