EXTREMELY toxic work environment, not worth the mental stress - Full Stack Developer Crane AI Employee Review

*** NOTE: I suspect that Tomer Dicturel, the CEO, has been calling former employees to personally find out who wrote some of these reviews, and I suspect that he is asking them to leave good reviews. The CTO (Ryan Hickman) and the CEO seem to take advantage of bootcamp grads who in their eyes are "desperate" for their first full-time gig in their field, and are willing to work for a lower salary. The company is so small to begin with (around 10 - 25 people), that everyone knows each other’s sentiments EXTREMELY well. There is nearly 100% UNANIMOUS dissatisfaction and disgust across the board. As a result, there has been a HIGH turnover rate recently because most employees are finally fed up (8 employees total from Crane/its sister companies no longer work there for various reasons within a span of only about 2-3 months. Only about 4-5 full time employees are left from all the companies combined). If you want accurate and honest feedback, I HIGHLY URGE YOU to contact former employees of Crane AI, and its sister companies Epic AI/Trane AI, and speak with them directly before you even think about applying to what seems to be a sinking ship. I’d say take a look at all the affiliated Epic AI/Trane AI/Coindealer websites to learn more about them yourselves, but they’ve all now been conveniently taken down and redirect to something completely unrelated which seems very odd/sketchy.*** ​ This company is a classic example of a textbook toxic work environment:
 Please refer to and read along with the '5 Signs You're in a Toxic Workplace' Forbes article “They see disagreement as defection”. ​The CEO is severely lacking in effective management/communication skills. When an employee expresses even the slightest concern or negative feedback, the CEO seems to wrongfully perceive it as an attack and get defensive. He will rudely talk over you and raise his voice. He won't give you a chance to get a word in. He is not beneath FIRING you soon after firmly voicing your concerns to him. His terminations of employment seem hardly justifiable. They come off more as an impulsive power move from the CEO, due to the fact that you simply disagree with him on his supposed reasons for termination, rather than being quiet and obedient. This is why most employees do not bring up their concerns; out of fear of losing their job. You may even receive a "final warning" through e-mail saying you will be fired if you come in late one more time. If you do receive that e-mail, you are still expected to come into work with a positive attitude and be productive, while the daily fear of losing your job over a train delay, missed alarm etc., is on your mind every morning. This is EXTREMELY toxic, and VERY detrimental to the employee's mental health. Uncontrollable factors such as train delays, missed alarms, snow etc. were not always valid excuses, and their validity seemed to depend on the CEO's mood that morning. Some employees were so fearful of getting fired, they would take a personal day off just because they were running a few minutes late. “Narcissists tend to believe the rules don't apply to them”. The CEO set a rule- If you come in even 1 minute past 9:30am, you will be sent home for the day. The second time you do it, you will be fired. Although you are allowed to leave at 5:00pm, you are made to feel guilty and it's frowned upon. The CEO often contacts select employees in the morning to ask who was on time, rather than coming in himself to check. He also asked the former front desk guy of the co-working space the company occupied to keep track of our exact start times, and as a result, we always felt as though we were being constantly watched. He also regularly calls the CTO after 5:00pm, to let him know who is still in the office. Meanwhile, the CEO himself will stroll in anywhere from 10am-12pm and almost always leaves early around 3:00-4:00pm. Some days he doesn't even show up. The hypocrisy that both the CEO/CTO exhibit, is astounding. “See no issue in demanding near-perfection from others”. The CEO/CTO have expressed that "work from home is unproductive", yet the CTO lives on the other side of the country in a different time-zone and works from home pretty much every single day. Again, hypocrisy. The CTO will often put you under immense stress/pressure and give tasks with unrealistic same-day deadlines with no proper planning. There is minimal organization. If you do not deliver, you are made to feel unproductive/a failure and harassed until you complete it. They also employ almost everyone as a paid INTERN first; most people seeking full-time, were interns and were converted within 3 months. Sometimes (supposedly usually due to money issues) it took even longer. Every time you ask when you'll be converted (and it might be a LOT of times before you are), you will feel you are given excuse after excuse to delay your conversion. The CEO will also never bring it up and you will have to basically chase him to even have the conversation. If you don't chase him and proactively ask, you probably would be an intern for over 6 months. In the past, it has taken up to 4.5 months before being converted. Many people felt as though the internships were a way to get quality labor for cheap. The internship pay was hardly enough to live off of while many people would work hard/long hours in the hopes of being converted fast. It felt like they were running a sweatshop. ​ “Inconsistent Rulebook”. The CEO chooses when to harshly enforce a rule, and who will be punished. Many times, certain employees are punished for doing something while other employees are not. If you are fired for violating their rule of not being late to work, you may even be denied unemployment (this has happened before). It seems as though this is another loop hole for them to cheat you out of giving you more money, and thus, can fire you easily without financial consequences for them (perhaps this is why they have such strict work timings). They don't give severance either. Other employees who frequently came in late were hardly penalized for doing the exact same thing, got away with a lot more, and certainly were not fired. They seem to frequently play favorites, and choose on a whim who to keep and who to let go simply based on whether or not they liked you, rather than on your work ethic/productivity. ​ *TOXIC COMMUNICATION/INTERACTIONS:* CTO: Ryan Hickman, the CTO, has extreme mood swings, highs/lows, is non-confrontational, and aggressively tries to be your “friend”. He will try to bond with you on common interests to gain your trust, but everyone can see through it and feels it is not genuine. He once shared an inappropriate music video which contained sexual imagery that made the employees (especially the female employees) uncomfortable. He also once posted a question in the general channel on slack, but no one had responded quickly, so he said "it's a [cruel] move not to respond”, which was profoundly unprofessional (instead of the word "cruel" he used an expletive). Meanwhile, he is fond of straight up ignoring employees for DAYS at a time when they ask for a task. More hypocrisy. He is very cowardly when it comes to honest, open communication. He seems to use the CEO as a puppet to play "bad cop" so he doesn't have to deal with anything. He will even use other people, including FAMILY MEMBERS to get information out of you. He is not beneath pressuring you to grab him some coffee, and suggesting you make the trip with the family member so they "aren't bored". The family member may actually proceed to interrogate you/about other co-workers, and make inappropriate comments about them. Even going so far as to call an ethnic employee "a bald-headed monkey". He also tries to give people bogus advice and has once said “you do not have the business know-how to move laterally and receive a higher salary”. Meanwhile, multiple previous employees including myself (specifically engineers) went on to make well over six figures, which we were nowhere close to receiving from this company. CEO: Tomer Dicturel, the CEO, is almost never available, conveniently forgetful, hard to reach, bad at responding to e-mails in a timely manner (if at all), bad at answering phone calls, dodges legitimate work-related questions, avoids tough conversations, frequently makes claims about his wealth/extravagant lifestyle and tries to show off when nobody cares. He is considered a poor excuse of a manager by a majority of employees, and seems to essentially manage nothing. Most people do not have respect for him, do not take him seriously, and never believe his seemingly far fetched claims/stories due to these qualities. Almost every employee feels he is cowardly and insecure. But most of all, the CEO constantly insults employees under the guise of "harmless jokes". Many times the employees will feel pressured to laugh and act undisturbed so they don’t get on his bad side. He has inappropriately joked several times: "stop kissing your co-worker", if you kept getting sick. There have been numerous jokes and comments that have made everyone in the room severely uncomfortable. He once talked about when he was younger and went to New Orleans and how him and a group of his male friends partook in sexual activities with a “hot” female from across the hall. This made everyone EXTREMELY uncomfortable. He also called his own family member an obscene word and used profanity during a conversation in front of everyone, which made people uncomfortable. A lot of times he disguises his passive aggression as well, and will joke about you not being productive enough. This severely lowered morale.