GitHub reviews

Kind of like Animal Farm, in company form…? Convoluted internal politics and history, heavily skewed against empowering remote employees to have influence on decisions or visibility into context. Lots of backchannel communication. Zero clarity for career progression and upward (or sideways) mobility. Poor feedback systems (both positive and critical), with very little meaningful action resulting from feedback processes. Many managers with poor people skills, and/or unmotivated to be good managers. No consistent management philosophy. Management is explicitly and actively discouraging community involvement.

- It can be scary and confusing for people who don't understand that GitHub's history of operating as a meritocracy has created a sort of authority hierarchy distinct from the org-chart. Does the opinion of your boss or department head matter? Depending on where you sit in the company the answer might be "no" which means it can be scary not knowing whether or not you're doing a good job as evaluated by the people who actually matter within the company. - Internal communication could be better. - There are some inexperienced members of the executive team, and it is understaffed. - Lots of big, siloed decisions get made without any transparency by a select few people with direct access to @defukt (CEO). - If you're not in the "in-crowd" it will seem like the most political company you've ever worked for. - Sometimes it feels like it is safer to do nothing than do something and have it ripped to shreds due to not meeting subjectively applied quality standards. - Impostor syndrome is an epidemic at GitHub... people are often paralyzed by fear resulting in slow shipping.