Avoid at all costs: Top-down micro-management, insane working hours, no appreciation - Software Developer PasientSky Employee Review

1.0
3 May 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Young active workplace, many talented engineers, company doesn't spare expenses when it comes to equipment, central location, nice, modern office-spaces, subsidised lunch plan, longer annual vacation (7 weeks), very strong QA team and testing. They are willing to take and train relatively unexperienced developers. Your educational background is not a priority, if you can show you can code well, you will be hired. Lots of good learning experience.

Cons

There is so much negative here that I'm not sure the text limit will suffice, will try to break it down by topic. Management: The top management takes unilateral decisions without considering the domain expertise of people working for them, one particular office head is notorious for hounding employees and treating them like school-children; popping up randomly behind you with demands to see what you're doing, and your code. There is no trust in employees, and they are not allowed to take ownership of their projects, or tech-stack, you are essentially an extension of the will of 2-3 leads who decide everything you work on. Obedience is the bible of this place, any inclination, to debate/question decisions is unacceptable. some managers are better and do their best to ameliorate this behaviour that comes from top-management, but its a roll of the dice. Work/life balance: Normally the company sticks to standard working hours, however, because the development style is fairly waterfall with big-feature-releases; Shortly before a release you might be asked to join what the company calls a "workshop", taking place in oslo (you'll be flown there if you're from a danish office). What it actually is, is an incredibly gruelling crunch-week, where people work from 8am to midnight (and in some cases up to 3am) only to wake up and do the same next day. you are not given overtime, or days off in lieu of this, as management maintains that the extra vacation weeks in your contract cover these -however, you are not allowed to take vacation when you want it, it is company assigned, so you can't even take your vacation days to recover. Compensation: Ostensibly a strong perk, 7 weeks of vacation are given instead of the standard 5. In the interview, I was told that it was 8-10 weeks, however, the contract only said 7. I cannot recall the reason I was given for that. but I believe I did receive 8 anyway. The major problem with the vacation scheme is that you are not allowed to choose vacation days, the company will collectively go on vacation together so you will be told "your summer vacation this year, is from x to x" and you can neither cancel it, or shift it, even by one week. That doesn't seem like a big problem in the beginning, however, they are completely inflexible on this, so consider weddings, holiday plans with family/friends...it becomes a nightmare. Tech culture: company claims to be agile, but works pretty waterfall, no product teams, rather a frontend team and a back-end team, throwing cards over the wall. big feature releases, top down decisions and grooming of tasks, and management has been known to change direction pretty abruptly in advanced stages of implementation. The QA team is the saving grace of this process; they are incredibly talented, thorough, and dedicated, if they have to make a rain dance and sacrifice 3 virgins to make sure your code is bug free, they will do it. The bottom line is, the company cares about the bottom line, they have expanded their product rapidly, and have created many great features, but at the price of their employees' well being and a having a good working culture. You will definitely learn a lot -there are some incredibly talented people there- but you will be ground to the bone, if you do some investigation you will find that their turn-over rate is insane. I am of course a former employee, and my opinion is biased by my experience at the company, but I encourage you to reach out on linkedIn to a few others, and the facts will speak for themselves.

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1.0
26 Apr 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The people working on the floor

Cons

horrrible leaders with little experience

1.0
27 Aug 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Healthtech is insanely interesting, and being able to work on something that really makes a difference for patients is very motivating.

Cons

The entire foundation of the company is dysfunctional. The fact that the company has had 10+ CEOs, 4+ CFO, and 3 completely failed COO, and one CTO between founding and 2021 should say something about the culture. There are no formalized processes. Every department is siloed with little to no collaboration between department managers. There are basically two decision-makers. Either the founder or his half-brother (the CBDO). None of them have any area of expertise and don't listen to expert advice. The founder, who wants to control everything, is out of touch with the rest of the company and everything is in complete chaos. There is little legal supervision and no interest in making world-class software. The only KPI that really matters is MRR, while the NPS is way below the industry standard. The culture is as such that several employees have been told off when choosing family instead of working overtime. The culture is destructive, indifferent, and with the illusion that employees are the most important to the company.

9
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