Solid State Operations Reviews

- Don't listen to employee feedback - They care more about you falling in line with corporate and buying into the culture club than how good you are at the job you were hired for - Spend hours a week in meetings like "Developing Culture" and determining your personality type - Leadership is very behind on modern technologies and resistant to any type of change - Most of the leadership all worked together for state government prior to starting the company, some live on the same street together, and no one penetrates this "Inner Circle" of influence who wasn't already there - They have a very specific stack using MVC Razor pages with JQuery and .NET 3 even though the company was started in 2021 and they are still making new microservices and products using these outdated stacks. - CEO treats his employees like human capital and seems to care more about the size of the company than the employees themselves. There are a lot of things I can say about how terrible of an experience it was working at this company and the constant stream of leadership redirects, but my experience in quitting should really be the biggest warning sign to anyone daring to accept an offer here: I quit this company because, even though I was hired as a developer, I was told that I had to be part of front-end design process (color choice, page layout, typeface) because I do design work on the side. I told them I didn't feel like giving my design experience for free because I was hired to write code (and their lead designer never took my feedback up to this point). I was threatened to be fired because I told them I didn't want to be part of the design process. Was actually told that "you bring your whole self to the job" and that my attitude was not a "multiplier mentality". I asked the CTO after this meeting if I was tasked to bring in cupcakes by my manager, if I was required to bring them in. He said they wouldn't ask us to do that, but after me pushing, he said that if it came down to it, they would expect the employee to bring cupcakes because leadership would have had a reasonable reason for asking in the first place if that happened. (my work as a developer had never come into question during any of these meetings and even was driving most of the front end at this point) I looked for a job later that day and found something in short order, so I sent my resignation letter directly to the CEO to give him some insight into the way things were happening with me and why I was deciding to quit. My resignation letter was very long and mostly describing the situation leading to my resignation, so I am only sending a bit from the last couple paragraphs: RESIGNATION LETTER CONCLUSION --- "... To say I don’t bring my whole self to the team or am not a team player because I won’t do free design consultation is dishonest and a misrepresentation of reality. I have spent hours on the phone almost every week walking [junior developer] step by step through things because [team lead] didn’t have the time for it. Or helping [teammate] figure something out in stuff I’ve written. Or writing an endpoint we needed in Support Portal Service (microservices team's job) because the rest of that team was busy when we needed it. To say I’m not a team player is a flat out lie that I take offense to, especially coming from my own team lead who I thought had seen all the things I do for the team. ... I hope that I have at least provided a more 3 dimensional view at what the people below your team leads feel. I was squashed in the middle of an inexperienced designer who isn’t capable of receiving feedback and the main leads at this company telling me to shut up. I literally had no chance at coming out ahead in this. If you agree with how things were handled and that I should have been fired for this, then I am glad to be leaving because that is not the type of environment I want to be forced to work in or that will make me happy to work for. However, if you think this was mismanaged as well, I will say that something needs to be addressed very soon because discontent is rising quickly in the developer ranks due to all the changes that have been happening, the changes not happening that need to, and a growing concern over fluff like developing culture taking precedence over good practices, technologies, and direct communication, which I would argue is precisely why I am leaving. " This is the letter I got in response from him: CEO LETTER --- "Thank you for taking the time to send me this email. If the purpose was to vent, I totally get it – it sounds like you have a lot of anger and hurt about the situation that you wanted to get off your chest. If you don’t just want to vent, but you want a dialog, make an appointment with me for next week when I’m back in town and I’ll buy you breakfast or lunch and we can discuss the past, present, and future of Solid and of Brice. I’d like that. Until then (or if we never get that chance), I offer this thought: a “job” is a relationship with the people that you work with. Let me tell you about Jeremy’s job and my relationship with him. When Jeremy started working with me, he sacrificed the security of a job with the state based on my promises and his trust in me. At the time, things were very different than they are now: there were no LinkedIn recruiters lining up because remote work hadn’t caught on. The security of his family was on the line. I asked him to spend several weeks In Alabama and he did it without complaint. I asked more and more and more until Jeremy was spending 16 hour days working to get Alabama to go live on our system and then fixing problems that arose. Whether it was early morning or late night, Jeremy was available to help and was supremely effective in doing it. He had a family he needed to take care of – and another restaurant business to run at the same time. I asked Jeremy to move his family to Boise, and to sell his restaurant. He agreed. I asked him in the meantime to spend time in Boise coaching his team. So for the last year, Jeremy has driven 6 hours each weekend in order to spend every other week away from his family so he can be in Boise to help the SSO team. I asked Jeremy to get out of coding and to focus on building a team of people that could multiply his skills and vision – even though that was not what Jeremy originally came on to do. He’s done it willingly. He’s read and learned and applied himself to the new task, redefining his role in the company even though at times it’s caused him to stretch to the point of doubting himself. There are so many more times I’ve asked something and Jeremy has jumped into it because it helped his team rather than because he himself wanted to. Even this night, Jeremy’s daughter is having surgery, but Jeremy is driving that 6 hour trip to be in Boise with his team. Over the last three years, Jeremy has given everything to this company, to his team, and to me. That’s “bringing your whole self;” that’s “making muffins.” Do you think there’s anything I wouldn’t do for Jeremy? There’s not. I wouldn’t give a second thought to Business-info – but I’d give my right arm for more Jeremys." There is a screenshot of the email on imgur if you search for "CEO got CTO to miss Daughter's Surgery to be in office out of state"