TAINA Technology Reviews

Strongly hierarchical culture and top-down management --------------------- • Work is slow-paced, processes are bureaucratic with lots of overheads, and micromanagement is rife. Individuals are not empowered, and neither are they trusted • People in leadership positions are unsupportive and uncollaborative in the extreme. If they engage with you at all, they act as obstructive gatekeepers, rather than colleagues • They take a disdainful and sanctimonious attitude toward those they deem “worth less than them”, and will belittle and patronise you. Yet despite this, their work is some of the most amateur I’ve ever seen. They would not survive anywhere else • These people do not act as though they are accountable to the team. They have been allowed to do whatever they want unchallenged, routinely trampling on others’ work • They do not submit their work to the same scrutiny they expect of staff, and if you do offer feedback, they become defensive and vindictive Knowledge hoarding --------------------- • Information is tightly controlled and not freely available, despite constant chasing, and teams are siloed from eachother; making it difficult to do your job or have awareness of the wider context Blame culture --------------------- • Leadership will take credit when things go well. From shoutouts and company meetings you’d think they were singularly responsible • Yet when things go wrong, the team will be scolded and lectured, with no interest in addressing the root causes (they attend retros only begrudgingly) • If their work goes wrong, they do not take ownership. At best they try to ignore it, at worst they deflect and throw the team under the bus!!!! Chaotic requirements --------------------- • Priorities, deadlines, and requirements are changed at random, even mid-sprint • Unhappy clients are promised the world on short notice to assuage them, which we inevitably fail to deliver • This constant moving of the goalposts creates a mountain of technical debt and crunch time Disagreement is not tolerated --------------------- • They have no willingness to fix issues that keep on happening. Red flags were present from the very start, but I thought I could show them a better path. I could not, they have no interest in changing. Putting on a happy face is more important than being earnest.

Despite claiming to be a non-hierarchical work place, this is the most toxic and hierarchal place I have ever worked in. All blockers come from the top creating an uncomfortable working environment with 'respect' created based off fear. Filled with passive-aggressive and patronising higher ups which spoil an otherwise ok company to work for.