There's a bubble, the bubble contains people who have a stake in the company. The frequent hiring of industry-leading experienced people, only to let go and replaced with someone from the inside is absurd. Immediate red flag for everyone on board.
For the effort we all put in, the pay was mediocre. The merit raise is not a guarantee and expect to "prove" your value in front of upper management when in reality they have no clue what they want to see. Mix that with an already overworked team leads, you get great people leaving simply for less stress and equal reward.
It started to spiral downward when they decided to throw an inexperienced engineer (I say engineer lightly) in the CTO spot. You could collect all the engineers who've left in the last 12 months and fingers would point ultimately back to this guy, one way or another. He has a severe lack of people skills and carries one of the most antic egos imaginable. Whenever he talks, everyone in the crowd is lost at what he's attempting to say - it's clear now he definitely didn't know what he was trying to say. All smoke, waiting on others to do the work for him. No vision. There's clearly more "ties" between him and the rest of leadership, no company in their right mind would let him stick around. Instead, they decided to demote likely the ONLY person that the entire software department would advocate for. The only person who we would have worked our butts off for. Imagine that. The turnover issue starts here.
Even with that said, the .COM push (and yank) has lead the company to where it is today. Adding a company metric around hiring (hope everyone likes their backpack), pumping the offices as full as possible - literally. All to put over a hundred people out of a job. Where's the humility? Layoffs happen, it's the industry, but the way it was approached, the rumors, the lack of heads up, what kind of severance?
No more company trip, no more giving to non-profits. The job market is wide open and there's not a lot Spreetail can do to recoup any time soon. Think long and hard before accepting a position here.
