Toast Inc Software Developer reviews

The work culture is highly demanding, and many employees seem to be constantly worried about layoffs. Deadlines are often very aggressive, with tasks expected to be completed within just a couple of days, creating significant pressure. There also appears to be a strong emphasis on using AI for everything, sometimes at the expense of realistic planning and employee well-being. While AI is a valuable tool, it should support employees rather than be used to justify unrealistic expectations. Overall, the environment can feel stressful, with limited focus on work-life balance or employee support.

Full on AI psychosis in the C Suite. The execs think the difference between a junior and a senior engineer is negated by a Claude license. Individual token use and commit count is the measure of productivity. Lately they want Amazon style performance culture at less than half the comp. Execs think MCPs are the solution to human knowledge silos and missing docs and broken process and political infighting. Steve Fredette himself made all of R&D do a week long hackathon then had a slop bot that mostly insulted everyone "judge" the projects. They want everything fast and sloppy and the ones who get rewarded are the ones who put their name on something shiny and push consequences somewhere else in the company. I can't chip away at the mountain of tech debt on my team because my managers want to open our repo to pretty much anyone at the company who wants to push slop and we have code being merged that doesn't even pass the linter. Thoughtfulness has zero place here. I have given up and I used to be a conscientious person who couldn't phone it in no matter where I worked, but Toast has broken me.