Loads of red tape and micromanagers - Software Engineer TraceLink Employee Review

2.0
Jul 9, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work on software that makes a difference in healthcare Friendly people and good overall office culture There are still a few good managers who support and listen to their teams Free lunches (at least before the pandemic)

Cons

Micromanagers. (If your hiring manager spontaneously says 'I don't micromanage' or calls him/herself 'data-driven,' run away while you can!) Upper management talks about quality all the time but, rather than invest the time to let engineers fix problems, they add another layer of red tape every time something goes wrong. They assume that forcing people to document everything (repeatedly, in multiple different formats) will prevent mistakes. It really just prevents work from getting done. With tight deadlines that don't allow for all of this documentation, engineers have to cut corners to make the metrics look good. When this inevitably causes more problems, upper management adds yet another layer of bureaucracy to 'fix' it.

Explore other reviews about TraceLink

5.0
Dec 19, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

CEO is visionary Positive work environment

Cons

Very slow growth or no growth

2.0
Apr 15, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* Free lunch in the office. * Good tech solving real problems and improving the safety of the pharma supply chain. * Smart contributor and manager-level employees.

Cons

* CEO and COO don't trust the people they hire and micromanage often. When something fails, you get blamed despite an executive taking a major role in shifting it from your vision to the current state. * Penny pinching and outsourcing constantly without considering the downstream consequences. Example: Cutting an experienced contractor to use a cheap foreign freelancer from an online marketplace, resulting in deliverable delays that affect board presentations. * General poor treatment of talent. Horror stories like pressuring people to finish work over the holidays for SKO, when in reality they were being laid off. Layoffs happen annually. An incredible amount of hiring from the outside instead of promoting within too. * Terrible RTO push. Went from attributing growth during COVID to how good we were at WFH to completely eliminating remote work opportunities and mandating 5 days in office.

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