Have you ever lived in constant fear that you're about to be let go? Have you ever turned up to work and the person who you are sitting beside isn't there and their desk has been wiped clean? Trying to reach out to someone to introduce yourself but your email bounced because they've been let go last night after only being on board one month? Welcome to Hell Simulator 2000.
You'll quickly get desensitized to hearing the company has parted ways with an employee, and literally no one is safe. Managers, senior leaders, and even top individual contributors are let go for seemingly no apparent reason, or because they can't hit some unobtainable target or KPI that has been set by "the board" or the CEO.
It is quite fitting that the business specializes in POS systems because the CEO could certainly be branded with the same acronym, different meaning, if you catch my drift.
Prepare to work on something and have the CEO meticulously micromanage the entire process - or even worse, force the marketing team to release it into the world months before it's even ready for even internal testing, making the whole customer experience hot garbage. It's an act of absolute desperation to conjure up some sort of relevancy because even the senior management knows it's a sinking ship.
The CEO has also created a KPI that employees must work 50 hour weeks, even though this isn't in anyone's contract, and has offered incentives to employees that comply, as some sort of a cruel carrot-chasing treadmill burnout trap. This was offered instead of a salary raise after the company had publicly raised Series B, by the way. Don't like it? Sure, hand back your company laptop please and don't let the door hit you on the way out.
Advice to interviewees: don't bother - you can do better. Don't be fooled by the colorful brand - it's smoke and mirrors from a previous era. You'll be grossly underpaid, overworked, and walking on eggshells until the day you are ruthlessly let go.
