Support department has gone from having a few issues to being absolute garbage. The problem: Management
Pros
The bonuses and stock options are nice, but they still will not match 401k, and apparently are never going to. Okta provides employees with good quality machines to work on, so that's never been a problem. The in-office amenities have been worthless since COVID hit, and they only serve to encourage you to stay in the office longer in order to work more. The "Speakeasy" is pretty cool though. Decent place to drink a beer and play a few rounds of video games. The insurance is very, very good. Unlimited PTO is very good
Cons
I work in Support, which is under the umbrella of the Customer First department. First off: if you are not a management favorite, you will never move past your station at this company. Nepotism and playing favorites are a massive issue in the Support department. These issues arose when a large management shift occurred, and the previous Director of Support left. This allowed several managers who are largely not capable of performing their jobs to any adequate standards into the roles that were needed to be filled after his departure. The department is making some heavy changes, and criticizing anything regarding these changes, or even asking benign questions, results in negative and/or hostile responses from management. This also follows for any general feedback that is not abject praise for what management is doing. Do not ever expect to be promoted based on doing a good job here. Management promotes based on who their favorite people are, regardless of if their performance is garbage. You may outperform your entire team, and then be told you are not doing a good enough job because Customer Success Managers haven't sent an unsolicited "kudos" email to your boss. Your work and life time will not be respected. Pulling overtime is seen as virtuous, even if you have a family. The issue being that there is often times so much work, that you may need to go in to overtime to get remotely anything done. You will be on-call frequently, and will be given non-critical issues, essentially just working an entire shift, when that occurs. Support is essentially a Help Desk/Call Center now. It follows all of the standard protocols, with an emphasis on jumping on the phone with new customers while also having to troubleshoot highly complex issues that should be done in silence. Management emphasizes answering the phone over prioritizing work, and this is a delusional attitude that makes both the customers and the TSEs suffer. Managers are never available when you need them for practically anything. I have had no actionable feedback from my manager for over a year, and I hear this from multiple other Engineers. Your direct messages will be ignored for days, and email is even worse. These are people, who from my perspective, sit in meetings all day wasting the company's money. We have far too many managers and far too few Engineers, especially senior Engineers. Why is that? Because Okta keeps pushing all of its talent away after people discover the scam of being promoted in this company.
