Any leadership that is VP and above has a cult-like mentality that WillowTree is the next Google and that its fearless leaders can do no wrong. Management has no respect for any issues raised to them and HR is clueless, only recently seeming to remember it exists. Leadership is rotting from the inside out as they all pat themselves on the back after their paydays from the acquisition. One would hope that this turmoil wages on unknown to them, but can anyone really be that blind to the goings on of their own company?
WillowTree loves to tell you all the things it’s done right, they didn’t lay off anyone during COVID, they donate to charity, they do pro bono work with clients, they have transparent pay bands, ‘Best Place to Work’ awards, etc. WillowTree is all flashy talking points but no substance- what everyone is being conveniently shielded from is the lack of transparency, appropriate compensation, zero psychological safety, game-playing, gaslighting, and discrimination.
Leadership sees so few ramifications for their own actions that most do what they want and manage how they want and blame any issues on IC. They fire people on a whim, creating confusion and fear when peers suddenly disappear from Slack, but then shrug and conveniently point back to never having laid anyone off. They prolong promoting and rewarding people and place so much weight on peer-to-peer feedback that it becomes a popularity contest. Engineers are shuffled between managers and teams so quickly it seems deliberate in order to avoid said promotion or reward. Allocation is not done with an employee’s best interest in mind, only the bottom line. Teams are strained beyond their capabilities and ICs are expected to go above and beyond to please clients with little to no support from management.
WillowTree leadership constantly asks for good public reviews about the company so they can gain more paid-for awards, and the Kool-Aid drinkers will happily oblige, conveniently parroting the talking points they are fed back out into the world. Those who are unhappy, exhausted, or feel unsafe are afraid to speak up or seek help due to constant backlash and the likelihood that they’ll be called crazy instead of listened to.
