A culture of fear mixed with political theatre
Pros
People on the ground are great
Cons
Remote has turned into a bit of a garbage company. A total lack of vision, strategy and as a result, progress. The cofounders love fostering a culture of tribal toxic politics that means you cannot be effective in your role and output quality work as you will be swatting away infuriating, pointless politics. The internal culture on Slack is all about 'optics'. Forget actual impact as leaders do not care. It's all about keeping up appearances, and the company is suffering as a result. All leaders are managing their perception of themselves and will throw anyone under the bus. There is a big individual blame culture. The reality of working in a place like Remote is that leadership dresses up awful behaviour as development opportunities. Don't take any advice from leadership in this place - you will not survive in the real world in serious companies by behaving the way people do in Remote. It's evident from some of the longer-standing founding colleagues that there is an unbearable amount ego to deal with. Remote has various VP/GM-level leaders waltzing around the business with zero impact, zero understanding but able to pull the wool over the co-founders' eyes in terms of their actual impact on the business. Continuous secret layoffs, colleagues disappearing with no notice on a daily basis is the norm and the company is not built on any kind of visionary inspirational mission or vision as the handbook may make you think. Remote is simply not the company it was. The culture is based on fear. Expect to be micromanaged, not trusted, watched on Slack and questioned at every opportunity. It's like professional babysitting for competent adults. Performance reviews are nothing but political theatre, totally meaningless to actual development, purely a HR tool ready to exit people at a moment's notice. Payrises do not happen in Remote, your salary is fixed when you join, forget about inflation or general annual increases. You are a number at this company, not an employee. Do your work, keep your head down and don't ask questions. Especially don't challenge any bad leadership decisions.
