VelocityEHS Software Developer reviews

This used to be a great place to work for (despite the mediocre compensation) up until the new "leadership" took over about 2 years ago. Things have slowly been getting worse and senior employees have been fleeing the company at an alarming rate. - Compensation is far from competitive and bonuses have also been ENTIRELY REMOVED for non-management employees (the company is supposedly thriving). - Favoritism is rampant with lots of hires at the top level being ex co-workers coming from the same company (or friends)... but that's most likely a coincidence! No unethical hiring here, moving on. I won't even get to the CEO, all you need to know is that his mottos are "Winners on the winning team" and "We no longer win battles with numbers like Red Coats, we are Navy Seals". - Heavy micromanagement policy led to teams being frustrated and passive aggressivity ramping up. There's very little flexibility in the ways work is being done, you're just here to please executives. Process over progress, at all cost. This is depressing. - The CTO came up with the brilliant idea of adding a new scrum ceremony at the end of every sprints: "Commitment ceremonies" (don't bother looking it up, it doesn't exist in the development industry and you'll only find articles about marriage). Everyone on a given team will HAVE TO explicitly say "I commit" (to completing the work ALREADY planned for in previous ceremonies) in front of a group of C-level executives, Squid Game style. He shamelessly admitted that this is psychological manipulation: "I know... it's cultish and weird, but you'll get used to it. Otherwise the door is wide open". Nope, no grown adult with an ounce of self-respect will find this acceptable. You also have to love when he tells the teams he's "so proud of the work achieved", then proceeds to ask who the team thinks the MVP is. That person then gets a pat on the back and the right to wait for a reward that was promised and to my knowledge never given to a single person. Disturbing. - This was coupled with another great idea: The almighty metric system. Your team needs to achieve a certain number of points (whatever that means) per sprints BUUUT don't over perform, otherwise you'll have to outdo yourself next time for more credits! This system created a culture of utter mediocrity: Play it safe, do the bare minimum, and maybe you'll get a little something next year. Take any kind of risk and you'll be punished along with the rest of your team. Individual performance is a non-factor, even though it's always the same 20% doing 80% of the work. High performers are unmotivated and end up leaving for good reasons. - All of those things combined made for a very toxic work environment. I could go on and talk about the myriad of other problems related to day-to-day work but they would all pale in comparison to what was already listed.

Big Picture: The compensation package here is really bad. There is little opportunity to grow or learn. The company is far too focused on metrics. These new performance indicators have little relation to the actual work being done. Some of them even disincentivize pushing yourself and working harder. Worse yet, good metrics and positive performance reviews have no relation to your actual compensation/raise. The CEO has created a toxic work culture. When faced with challenging questions during town hall meetings, the CEO often responds by saying that you do not belong here and suggesting to work for the competition. This mentality is present throughout the upper management of the company. It is especially frustrating when you take into account the company's poor pay, lack of opportunity, and lack of direction. Day-to-day: The work isn't interesting or rewarding. The products lack direction. The scrum teams are heavily micromanaged. Teams have no agency over scrum ceremonies. Communication between teams is horrendous. Upper management is not interested in addressing the problems the rank and file face. It has been like this for quite a while with no end in sight. As a developer here, you feel trapped and have no hope of anything improving. It is a truly depressing place to work.