WP Engine reviews about "manager"

Toxic environment, current Senior Sales Manager is a bully which has lead to rotating door of staff, it's also commonly now known in the city as a stay away.

Sadly, no one hits goal here anymore. You will be very broke. This used to be a company that constantly winning and everyone was making great money. There are a few reps that are able to pull it off, but they’re either using incredibly shady tactics or get very very lucky. There is another review that says you’re trained to used faulty data to force customers into upgrading. That is ABSOLUTELY true. There is very very very solid merit behind that claim which can be proven by any rep. This used to be a fully remote job. Now it’s 2 days a week and will probably soon be more. If you’re remote, they say that “your location won’t affect your ability to be promoted. Unless that role has requirements about your location” Turns out, all sales roles do. The company is very obviously struggling right now. All of the old managers who were leading teams to succeed have left for greener pastures. WPE is no longer a great place to work.

Management is not transparent on sales goals. A lot of people get on game plans and PIPs. They are eventually pushed out of the company

it is difficult to hit sales targets

the pay raise or increments might not be good enough. even working through slave driven like busy queues during peak season not much recognition given like bonus or anything like that or even considering for pay raise as there as other hidden criterias or atleast thats not well disclosed. recognitions only through a portal where that likely only your manager whos gonna give a shout and point to redeemed but dont feel its worth

Get ready to be overworked & underpaid while the things you use all day every day change randomly in ways that make them worse! The drive to sell out to Wall Street has been making the company progressively worse in little ways that all add up. The Sales team has been worked like dogs to add more and more customers but Support was not staffed up to match the increased demand--in fact there was a hiring freeze for a long time--leading to high stress, mass burnout, talented people quitting, long wait times for customers, angrier customers once they get to us, & increased churn. Now they finally are hiring again, but almost none of it is US-based, instead taking on cheap outsourced labor who create countless escalations and an insane ticket queue. Y'all know customers HATE that, right? You know they can tell when you stop hiring people who know what they're doing and can communicate effectively and instead start using some shady contractor that hires for a pulse and pays pennies? We've always been well-known and well-regarded for our outstanding tech support, and I am VERY proud to have been a contributor to that, but our customers are noticing the shift in quality. As I already noted some higher-up got the bright idea to start hiring late shift people in Australia instead of USA to save on shift differentials. No shade whatsoever to our coworkers Down Under, they're all great, I just think it's a shady business decision. This same skinflint move of hiring cheap contractors has made trying to contact Engineering after normal US business hours an absolute nightmare. It feels like the only purpose those guys serve is to waste our time with nonsensical replies and then escalate to someone who knows what they're doing. Just hire people who know what they're doing from the start please! And if you need traction from someone in any other team you might as well go outside and watch the grass grow. Maybe they're chronically understaffed too? Change is a constant in the tech industry, but WP Engine has been taking that adage a little too far. Our vital tools and systems keep getting changed out of the blue in ways that make them worse or even non-functional with zero input asked from us, and then we're ignored or shut down when we point out the inevitable issues those changes have caused. Almost daily there's some new process, product, or policy that changes our workflow (sometimes radically, usually for the worse) & documentation is rarely in place before the new thing is slated to go live. Sometimes documentation just never materializes at all which is pretty frustrating for both us & the customers when its' something we're expected to support. Sometimes the documentation exists but no one in Support has access to it. (Note, I don't want to give you the impression that ALL the changes WP Engine has been making are bad, that's super not the case. Some changes are really great. It's just that when it comes to our tools & processes THOSE seem to just keep getting worse.) Upward mobility WITHIN Support has gotten better over the years but we're really feeling the strain of years of not promoting new L2s at a rate higher than like 2/yr. Upward mobility OUT OF Support is extremely competitive & hard to attain esp. if they just hire an outsider for the position. It's typical to have to go through the full application & interview process up to 5 times or more before you make it out of this department. I said the pay is ok but really that's only because I work really, really weird hours. And when I compare it to my previous job, adjusted for inflation I was making more money for less work with less tenure in 2017 in the same field & city. On the topic of pay up until recently we got a $100 wellness bonus that we could get as a direct deposit to pay ourselves back for office & living expenses like medication, vet bills, cleaning supplies, gym memberships, almost anything you can buy legally, plus a $100 bonus on your workiversary. Now we're switching to a different thing where we get "points" that we can exchange for whatever random garbage is going to be in this 3rd party's "marketplace." No direct deposit option, no custom reimbursement, no bank transfer, just the "marketplace" of what will probably be mass-produced corporate logo junk OR we can lose 5% of the cash value by putting it on a prepaid debit card... which we will then have to pay ANOTHER fee to if we want to move that money into a bank. Oh and that 5% is taxed. I dunno, maybe I shouldn't prejudge it but I do not feel good about this. Considering we can't add our own money to get more "points" it feels like this is just another way to nickel & dime their way out of giving us money. There are tons of fun events & important meetings that everyone is invited to but Support almost never gets to attend thanks to being chronically understaffed & availability-based. Shift leads used to approve our breaks (if they ever got around to it) but now we're expected to handle 3 needy customers at once AND approve each other's breaks for some reason. There's little to no standard of how far we're expected to go for a customer & some of them regularly make absolutely ludicrous requests. Not in practical terms anyway. Sometimes we're expected to say "oh sure yeah we'll do this extremely tedious thing for you that you could totally do yourself that'll take us 3 days to complete" & sometimes we get in trouble for agreeing to it instead. Important to know if you're ever hospitalized or have surgery: not only is there no gap pay anymore but you ALSO can't go buy your own! So that means that if you're temporarily disabled you better have savings because you're about to lose 40% of your income while you're out of work. WP Engine used to provide this but it's just one more good thing/perk that was taken away. Finally, another big con is the way L1s are pushed to use this stupid Gen AI bot some VP or middle manager got conned into buying. Like all Gen AI it's hot garbage. It almost never gives useful or correct results & it's giving those garbage results to techs who don't know any better & have no way of knowing they're being fed gibberish until they suddenly have a customer mad at them that they were told to click a button that's not there, because the AI copied instructions from some other company's website. So how are they supposed to know? Easy, the L2s are expected to check the answers of course! "Now wait a minute" you might say, "wouldn't it just be easier for them to ask an L2 to begin with?" And you'd be right, but someone spent money on this AI trash so this is what we're expected to do now! Love that for us. As many complaints as I have I still really like working here & that's WHY it's so hard to watch all the good things I've loved about it get steadily chipped away. I know this company could be so much better because we WERE better. I just hope we can course correct before the stock market piggies force the company to fire everyone in my department & rehire nothing but cheap outsourced labor. How's that been working out for Hostgator?

Poor leadership and management skills: The biggest issue by far is the lack of leadership and technical skills among management. Managers frequently make decisions without understanding their long-term impact on the team or the business. This disconnect between leadership and the day-to-day work makes the process of implementing new ideas or changes exhausting and ineffective. The company's inability to manage or foster growth only perpetuates these problems. Toxic work environment: The culture here is stifling. Employees are discouraged from sharing ideas or proposing imp rovements unless it’s something a manager has already approved or introduced. As a result, innovation is severely limited, and employees quickly become disengaged. Good ideas get lost because they don't come from management, leading to missed opportunities and frustration. Lack of expertise and inefficiency: Many in leadership positions lack the necessary knowledge in crucial areas. Basic tasks often require multiple calls, meetings, and emails just to explain simple concepts, which should be handled efficiently. The result is inefficiency, wasted time, and frustration. Projects that should be completed swiftly end up dragging on unnecessarily due to poor direction and a lack of understanding from management. Resistance to change: Trying to implement changes or improve processes is met with significant resistance. If management is unfamiliar with an idea, it takes an excessive amount of time and effort just to get it considered. This creates a frustrating environment where meaningful progress is nearly impossible. Cultural disconnect: There’s a noticeable issue with the company’s American mindset and tone, which often feels disconnected from employees in other regions. For example, I was once told that the tone of my email was NOT RIGHT, and when I asked for feedback, the response was dismissive: "As a sensitive American, I expected this." This shows a lack of respect and understanding for different perspectives, which only adds to the toxic environment. Lack of accountability: When mistakes happen, management tends to shift blame or avoid responsibility, creating an even more stressful environment for employees. I experienced this firsthand during a particularly challenging period where errors led to significant stress. Inconsistent feedback: I received an email accusing me of lacking empathy in my email interactions, which apparently had been a concern raised by multiple sales employees. However, this issue had never been brought up in any of the frequent 1:1 meetings I had with my manager (twice a week). When I asked for specific examples, I was told that I was going to receive a follow-up that never came. This highlights poor communication and a lack of willingness to provide constructive feedback, making it difficult for employees to improve or address concerns in a timely and effective manner. Unprofessional conflict resolution: The lack of leadership skills extends to how management handles employee issues. Instead of addressing concerns professionally, they often delay providing any feedback, or worse, ignore it entirely. This makes it difficult to trust the leadership or feel supported in your role.

Nobody hits goal, so if you are expecting to hit OTE, forget about it. Moral is extremely low, and management seems to be very keen on adding more and more in office days. I was fully remote when first hired, but as time has progressed the company has added more and more mandatory office days. Just one example of how the goal posts are constantly moved, and if you bring anything up you will be gaslit. There is also clear favoritism at play with more tenured reps in a variety of ways. That, on top of managers and sales leaders who have been with the company for years leaving or being pushed out, creates an environment where most reps are struggling to keep their jobs or even make enough money to maintain their standard of living.