A dystopia in denial - Anonymous employee UpCloud Employee Review

Let me share my first impression entering the Helsinki office: dead silence! I found it odd that in such a beautiful office space people didn't talk, the energy was very dark. Nothing was Up-lifting. Now I understand why... Brace yourself and read below. The company culture is toxic and the values are only in paper. Any great efforts made by single individuals are sabotaged by incomplete and biased HR people (they are the principal joy killers of the company). HR strategy is truly bizarre! Great people are let go without proper explanations and incapable people are promoted. The company brand identity is schizophrenic and this uncertainty is reflected throughout the operations: to whom are we selling? What our marketing communications and content be like? The biggest problem is that UpCloud has many junior and inexperienced people in key middle-management positions. They happened to find themselves at UpCloud in its startup earlier days and after several years they are now pretending to be managers and making decisions. Especially Marketing is non-existing. Most of the marketing people are without any marketing education or experience. One person moved from HR in UpCloud to marketing overnight (because she was in the in-group). There are no actual content creators in marketing. Freelancers are being hired and employees in-house who would have content marketing skills and experience to apply are not fully utilised. The company falsely claims that people are given internally opportunities to learn and grow and move to other roles. Again, if you are in the in-group you are promoted and change positions overnight, if not, they will sacrifice you. Talented employees feel stifled, with their hands tied, and it's nearly impossible to achieve anything. Great ideas are consistently met with rejection, and there's a noticeable lack of support from managers and direct colleagues, forcing employees to seek answers elsewhere. Top management's detachment is astonishing, as they appear to live in an ivory tower, maybe in Thailand or perhaps flying a plane somewhere, disconnected from the toxic culture that permeates the workplace. Nepotism and favoritism are rampant, further exacerbating the negative environment. At UpCloud, there are only certain individuals who hold influence, leaving the rest of the employees as second-class citizens who must comply with their ways of doing things. There is no true cultural diversity, you do as the Finns do and prefer. As a glaring example of this toxic and non-inclusive culture, office policies seem to value dogs more than employees. Dogs are referred to as "furry family members" by an HR person and prioritized over people. Even when employees have allergies or religious concerns, such as Muslims who consider dogs non-hygienic, no one cares. You are red-flagged that you don't fit the "company culture" that the powerful in-group created because they want to bring their dogs to work and remain satisfied. This policy highlights how the preferences of a select few dictate the rules, further alienating the rest of the staff. A marketing supervisor once shouted at me because I called him after receiving a message from him in Slack that seemed urgent saying angrily: "Why you call me? Has someone died? Only if someone dies you should call me!" Sales and marketing teams have hired and fired around 10 people (I lost count) in 1 year. Not a stable environment. Bad financial management. Unrealistic expectations and targets. Developers and engineers are brilliant yet they struggle to get heard. They are too afraid to shake the equilibrium of this dystopian company. They receive their high salaries, so why bother? They can tolerate toxicity since money talks.