Kavi Reviews

Upper management's view of the development group is myopic and confused. Priorities are disjointed and inconsistent. Tons of effort and hundreds of thousands of dollars are wasted building products with no markets and no business models, while the ancient and decrepit core product responsible for at least 99% of revenue receives only minor cosmetic updates. Middle management understands neither the business nor the processes of software development. Product management is unable to lead product development, doesn't understand Agile methodologies and is unwilling to ask hard questions like why the burndown chart never moves and release dates are months to years behind schedule. The development process is a fiasco in slow motion. The engineering team is talented but under weak leadership. Development decisions are based on ideology and (metaphorical) fistfights instead of pragmatism, intellectual rigor or business sense. Projects are built according to personal ideologies, often completely from scratch, regardless of the cost in time or money. In a better company, this would be tempered by management. Instead, some team members have become tin despots, more interested in impressing the brass and lording over those below them on the organizational chart than actually contributing. The result of this mess is that release cycles are measured in months or even years. The simplest of products, a so-called "Minimum Viable Product," has been in development limbo accreting unnecessary features for years. The wrong people have been fired as scapegoats on several occasions, while people who deserve firing are not, including people who are caught lying on their resumes. In any other market, this company would have gone bankrupt years ago. But Kavi is in a tiny market with no competition until quite recently. A new company has begun taking customers away from Kavi, and this will only continue, while upper management tries to rectify the cultural dysfunction by creating "Fun Committees" and handing out $25 gift cards each month.

There are some serious cultural shortcomings at Kavi, which start at management and work their way down. Favoritism is openly practiced, and there is a systematic tendency starting at the top to apply marketing principles (i.e.: say whatever is convenient at the time, worry about reconciling with the truth if and when necessary later) - not only to customers but to internal staff. Not coincidentally, key members of management having marketing backgrounds. There is zero accountability for unprofessional behavior and poor decisions - which routinely results in unprofessional behavior and poor decisions. The company is run like a high school popularity contest, with the largest (and most problematic) department sticking together like a cheer leading squad, making poor decisions, putting out low quality work, and never getting called out on it because management is scared of losing more of them due to historically high turnover. Management is not technically savvy (including some key members of management who really should be), so decisions often are not made on their technical merits. And since it is a tech company, sadly, the end result is what you would expect. The product is of poor quality and is stuck behind the times. There is a long history of developers working on what they want - unfortunately this doesn't usually align with what the customers need. Customer complaints, bugs, security issues and other reported issues go unresolved literally for years. There are a handful of good people who work here, but usually the good people move on, and people who want to milk an environment with low expectations stay. Meetings routinely end in shouting, and there are far more politics than you'd expect for a company this size.