Layer (Germany) Reviews

The management of the company was NOT what is required for a startup, they grew too fast and wasted a lot of funding in growing the team when the product itself was not profitable

Micro Management Lack of real transparency - Meaning that major decisions are announced that shock the whole team. Only the C Level people are ever in the 'know' and everyone else gets constantly blindsided by product changes, business changes, layoffs, team changes. There is a culture of making big reveals but they are missing the day to day inclusion of the people working on the problems. Management is afraid to have design and devs collaborate early on, intentionally siloing product and tech. Lack of facilitation skills within the company - they hire for specific technical skills but are missing the culture and collaboration mindset. Teamwork devolves into whoever is the loudest person in the room getting their way. It was really quite shocking to see the lack of group collaboration. You could see this even when we played games for fun at the offsites, people were far too individually competitive and could not complete fun-based games because they couldn't work together and over-complicated all the rules. A direct correlation here for an overcomplicated product. Perfectionist culture missing the point of being pre-product market fit, not prioritising the right things and obsessing over small things.