Pros
Polly (aka DealerPolicy) was initially everything you'd expect of a high growth start-up. There was opportunity galore, you got to play an integral part in building product from the ground up and have your hand in process creation and evolution as the organization grew, and we were seemingly heading in a positive direction. If you had equity, it was an exciting time to be involved and dream of what could be. I was impressed with the efforts they initially put into providing comprehensive leadership training and can say full well it helped me grow as a leader and provided me with a wealth of knowledge that extends past my time at Polly. While it was constantly changing and certainly chaotic at times (Engineering re-orged every 6 months like clock-work), over the course of my tenure there I found that I evolved to become more comfortable with the continual change and I actually enjoyed helping my teams work through it themselves. Engineering was a fantastic group of highly collaborative, driven, and SMART individuals and I genuinely can't think of a single person I didn't enjoy working with. It was exciting, challenging in a good way, oozing with opportunity, and the cast of characters was impressive.
Cons
The last year of my time at Polly, the cracks started to show. We were told "no" to anything we wanted to do as it pertained to things that would benefit our teams and the individuals on them, training program initiatives were halted or cut, positions for backfill roles were approved for posting one day and then redacted the next, and the autonomy that I and so many others loved quickly disappeared. I found myself with little input or even knowledge of any decisions made that were going to impact my teams. This left me questioning what my role actually was there when decisions were often made a level or two above me and I only found out when it was a done deal. It was disheartening, to say the least. In the first quarter of 2022, we were told that the applications one of my teams supported and major feature work associated was going to be top priority for the year. Every single time I inquired as to the status, that decision would be changed. All year long, that decision flip-flopped back and forth. In one of the sessions I'd scheduled with leadership and my team, we were all assured that if this project didn't pan out, there was plenty of work to be done and everyone would be safe. This was most certainly not the case as inevitably, most of my team and myself were laid off in early December. Blame the economic climate if it helps you sleep at night, but I highly doubt that's actually the case. I had heard it said by someone that the organization is like a group of 5-year-olds playing soccer, where they are all staring at the ball and running all over the field. I'd amend that to add that the soccer goal placement is also changing every minute, the referees are making the calls completely differently, and the kids are increasingly confused and frustrated. We were constantly getting conflicting messages from Stakeholders and Product and no one could get on the same page as to what the priorities were, why, and what data led us to believe it was even the right thing to even pursue. Early in 2022, we were informed that the business was moving towards making more data driven decisions to drive product direction. The closest we got was acquiring a company with the name of Driven Data. Throughout my time there, I loved Polly and was a big advocate for it; the people, the environment, the opportunity at hand, and the values I thought we all shared. But that all changed when I realized that apparently "Be Kind" is not a value that extends to employees when the business fails to appropriately set product direction and instead lays people off weeks before Christmas. You can say a layoff is a business decision and not a personal thing but doing so in the middle of the holiday season becomes deeply personal when it impacts your ability to provide a holly jolly Christmas for your family (hate to tell you, Santa does not exist). I thought they were better than to do such a thing in the manner in which they did but clearly, I was wrong there. Needless to say, I'm extremely disappointed that it ended the way it did as I so wanted it to be wildly successful, and myself along with it. I was delighted to be a part of it and proud of all that my teams and I accomplished (and still am). I was shocked and saddened that the hard efforts I put into helping build so much there and the genuine desire I had for wanting their success meant nothing but frankly, having gone through what I did, I know I'll be far better off elsewhere.
