Smoke and Mirrors - Run Run Run - Senior Software Engineer Tradeshift Employee Review

1.0
1 Feb 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You don't have to do much work as those who are in charge aren't really sure what is going on. Thus, if you don't know what is going on, you can't direct your staff to do much. The technical configuration of "micro service" architecture is so bad that you have great points to discuss when being asked "If you could have changed anything in your last position what would you have done?" Since you don't have to do much work here, you can work on your side hustles a lot more. Some engineers literally sleep at their desk in the office in SF, so you can sleep on the job. During layoffs, they kept the engineer who (I promise this is no joke, I have videos and pictures) sleeps the first 3 hours of each day. So if you like to sleep on the job, you will be considered worthy here. While we discussing sleeping around, staff members have slept with the engineering interns from time to time... in the office. So much that various mediums such as hammocks had to be removed from the office. So chance to get lucky here if that's your MO. There is incentive to write 5 star glass door reviews to cover up the truth of what this place is like. We know these good reviews raving about Tradeshift are you Christian as no one thinks Tradeshift is even 4/5 stars.

Cons

The majority of the products don't work. The ones that do work are so unscalable that it's not even funny. Who sets up applications with polling in this day and age? Oh we shouldn't use polling? Ah-ha! Long polling their engineering leads said! God forbid anyone investigated the option to utilize web sockets... I guess scalability doesn't matter when no one really uses the software. If you aren't a white male from Denmark or an attractive woman willing to work under quid pro quo circumstances then your career here is doomed. Very very inappropriate behaviors that come from the executive management team that reflects a Weinstein like culture. Free food but it is like eating from a chum bucket. You may like it if you are completely immune to the runs. Salaries are far below SF standards and they even brought in a finance professional to gauge whether they were paying appropriately and when they found out they were on the low end they decided to do nothing. Great way to boost moral in the office. Dev ops doesn't exist in SF and the dev stack is so unreliable that most people spend 20% of their time addressing issues with their stack. They recently moved to K8s stack to attempt to alleviate the misery that was brought on by the local stack but that was about as stable as a straw house. (This 20% number is not just made up, the eng org in SF as a group agreed thats the bare min amount of time spent on "fixing" their stack.) In the previous SF office there was a gender neutral bathroom. This is great for inclusion of various life styles. However, it was creepy to see only the executives go in after woman who go into that rest room. Again, the top level execs here give off the Weinstein vibe to the max. Ladies beware. The company is about as transparent as a brick wall. Want to know what is going on? That's a shame. There were products that were solely design and developed for the desktop and the CEO would talk to the whole company about how product X was the mobile first product when in reality it wasn't even QA'd on mobile by the team designing and engineering it. If the CEO will lie to the faces of the designers and engineers on the team who build such products then imagine what else he is lying about. They take money from investors who control large retirement accounts and then blow all the money. Then the next year they'll come up with a new smoke and mirrors idea about how to "disrupt" the supply chain network of the world. 1/4 billi a year goes up in smoke here. It'll be a sad retirement for many Canadians one day. Tradeshift has apartments for the employees to utilize when traveling to the office... that is if the CEO hasn't loaded them up with his friends from Denmark. When the apartments aren't available you have to foot the bill. Oh and the apartment was absolutely used as a business write off and then used for personal use by the CEO and his buddies to galavant and play wanna-be Elon Musk. ***ATTENTION IRS*** There have been reports to the FCA about fraudulent financial activity here and more than likely an investigation will be conducted. Run while you still can before your name gets dragged through the mud.

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Tradeshift Response
6y
Thank you for your feedback. The restructuring is not taken lightly. We recognize the impact on those who are leaving us and the contribution they made to help Tradeshift become what it is today. Intending to help those employees affected by the restructuring to have a soft landing, we provided severance pay that was much higher than legal requirements globally, provided bonuses, offered career search assistance, and other severance benefits. Over the last month, as promised, we secured funding that will be used to help accelerate our growth and help provide a sustainable path to profitability in the near future (https://spendmatters.com/2020/01/14/tradeshift-has-240-million-funding-round-plans-to-restructure-and-focus-on-near-term-profitability/). The additional capital will be used to further drive growth across core product lines. We are conscious of the need to grow and grow responsible near term profitability; and sought to address our costs to bring overheads in line with revenue. It's clear from your review that this restructure has been an emotional experience for you, and we regret that it has caused such a negative impact. As an engineer who was with us for over 3 years, it is shocking to read this review, and if things you suggest were true that you would choose not to speak to anyone about your concerns or voice it in any of our multiple feedback channels. While it is a fine line from coming off as defensive, it must be stated that you have written a review full of things that are quite unrealistic for anyone to believe (sleeping at your desk for 3 hours when we have an open floor plan - really?), and simply not true. Our lunch is catered through Platterz (www.platterz.ca/) and while you may not appreciate the quality, they do have an impressive list of clientele and local restaurants they use. The calendar for our corporate apartment is visible globally for all employees to see and book, and there is no evidence of misuse (nor has anyone ever made such a claim). We don't have engineering interns, our products do work (generating millions in revenue and thousands of new customers last year), there are no FCA claims or investigations. We also believe your comments about women are sexist and disrespectful to the women colleagues you once worked with. It's a shame your anger and bitterness have resulted in such slandering and untruths but I hope you can find some peace and can move on. If you have been affected by the restructuring and are no longer with us, we suggest that you take advantage of career services provided.

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