If you value your mental health and have any sort of professional integrity or even self-respect, don't join this company. You will very quickly be robbed of your sanity. There is a long line of engineers and "leadership" that faced the intractable problem of reining in a specific long-standing engineer, that has has seemingly been granted immunity from any consequences stemming from his bullying.
This person has been known to throw hissy fits when receiving pushback and consistently stonewalls their co-workers when they don't agree even with the simplest of things. There is rage quitting in meetings when they are cornered and silent refusals to review and approve work they personally don't agree with, indefinitely. There is repeated rehashing of arguments and goalpost moving to sabotage the work of other people, as well as simply playing dumb and "misunderstanding" important technical information shared with them. The list goes on.
There is complete powerlessness in pushing through even mundane, common sense technical decisions that don't absolutely comply with this person's whims. It is established that upsetting this person will just lead to massive arguments, which "affect productivity", and this presents a "risk to revenue".
There is a deeply ingrained culture of toxicity and extreme lack of psychological safety.
Ultimately, this is a lifestyle business, and all calls are being made directly by the owner and managing director. They are leading standups, join key engineer meetings, drive every Slack thread and ticket and are the de facto product owner, prioritiser of work and subject matter expert. He is intimately aware of these behaviours. Of course they "recognise the problem" and the threat to the business, but are reluctant to do anything concrete about it even in the face of several resignations and repeated complaints.
Fortunately we as engineers are in an industry where we have options. Prioritise your well-being and growth. Read the other reviews. Consult with your network or even reach out to previous employees on LinkedIn, I'm sure they will be extremely happy to help you dodge a bullet.
