- Insular, brosy core leadership team of non-technical people who you will probably not be aware of, never mind connect with, never mind move up into, unless you, also, meet the non-technical, insular, brosy bar. Most of the company is not aware of this circle because it is so detached from anyone actually doing the company's work.
- Nevertheless, this silent but crushing non-technical power imbalance corrupts downward through the rest of the culture and is creating a race to the bottom of Nortal's US market niche.
- You may witness every conceivable terrible, outdated delivery methodology and decision that flies in the face of decades of industry progress toward better practices and quality of life for people building software.
- At best there's consistent incompetence in all directions and team members are disrespected, ignored, or taken for granted. On average, certain projects are so toxic as to frequently needlessly intimidate and threaten members into submission. At worst, they'll gladly fire you if you try to do anything but take it or leave.
- As solid as HR is, there's only so much they can do to counterbalance the entire rest of the company.
- I've seen other toxic environments where employees can at least trauma bond together against management. At Nortal, I witnessed more than a few higher-level individuals who were careful to pit team members against each other in side bars and sew chaos, distrust, and drama between all members at all times. Honestly incredible.
I hope others reading this take the time to write their own experiences. Everyone is aware at this point that internal channels do worse than nothing and simply lead to dissenters leaving voluntarily or involuntarily. Silence has clearly been management's desired outcome, so if you recognize these patterns, share your experiences too. Don't let them get buried in nonsense recruiting posts.
