At some point last year, there was restructuring and layoffs. After this point, I felt there was a distinct change in the culture and type of work. In the first half a year since I started I had gone from the initial jumpstart Builders team to a more involved, 'regular' agile team. A few months after, layoffs happened and I was moved to another agile team, with some of my previous team members, and some new. I felt that the workload of this team was extremely high, with a lot of complicated and confusing tickets. During this time, I felt like getting help was difficult.
My newest manager would criticize me often, maybe some deserved, but it nevertheless felt suffocating. I was criticized by my manager for taking time away from peers. I was also criticized for not taking part in post-meeting activities during offsites (I was struggling with the loss of a family member during this specific time. I know my manager did not intend to hurt my feelings, but I can't help but still feel somewhat bitter that this was even mentioned to me as a reason for letting me go).
When I ended up with confusing and complicated tickets from time to time that didn't align with the typical agile process (having an issue in prod that didn't exist in QA for example), getting answers and help was draining, and I sometimes felt anxious about taking the time away from peers because of feedback from my manager. But I always stuck with it, and I always asked for challenging work.
At one point, near the end of my time at Bullhorn, I felt that I was being given the bottom of the barrel work, and there was no concern about my metrics to give me more tickets to meet my point goals. I remember asking for tickets constantly and being told to wait for work. I felt that I had to do so much and beg and scrounge just to get work to do.
I ultimately want to clarify that I did not, and do not harbor any ill-feelings to Bullhorn as a whole, or any of my managers. I respect Bullhorn so much for giving me my first shot in the industry, and I understand that there are complications, and some of the reasons for letting me go had nothing to do with me personally. I do think that I personally may have struggled to keep up with what was demanded of me in terms of my role as a SWE with Bullhorn as my first industry experience, but I will say I felt that in the end, support dwindled and I felt pushed out.
One more final point (that had nothing to do with my day-to-day work) I want to say is that I personally found it somewhat distasteful that there were constantly announcements of acquisitions after layoffs happened. I know this is not uncommon in the industry, but why let go of so much talent when you're going to spend so much on acquisitions anyway?
