Bludgeoning motivation out of its employees - Engineer Saltmine Employee Review

Saltmine is now a coconut husk of a company on its way to complete desiccation. Resignations are forced (to avoid severance compensation) and the outlook is very dark. What went wrong? At first, the easy money dried up like for most tech startups. But because they are terrible with people, Saltmine utterly failed the subsequent trial by fire. - Complicated and confusing product vision from the very top, but pushback is not appreciated - Firing competent staff who disagree with leadership but have proven their ability to execute - Retaining incompetent lackeys who will never say no - Consulting rather than product-driven mentality - endless feature patches to impress the next sales prospect that incur mounting technical debt - Technical debt creates never-ending emergencies, entire team is constantly stressed and on edge - Atrocious management. Chasing after metrics for their own sake, demanding progress but have no idea what those numbers reflect - Instead of leading by example, progress is compelled through fear, intimidation and cult-like mantras - All of this demotivates talented staff who either leave on their own or the ones who push back are thoroughly trashed by leadership, and then they leave A company is made up of people. In these challenging times it needs motivated people to work out how to consolidate and tide things over, even put in some sacrifices until things get better. But everything Saltmine has done has been the opposite of motivating people.