I ran one of RealPage's larger engineering product teams for three years, hiring and developing more than half of the engineering managers and engineers on my organization. I believed I was building something that mattered.
Instead of promoting the person already doing the work, leadership hired a lateral engineering manager alongside me. Over time, responsibility stayed with me while authority and support shifted elsewhere. I became the person expected to absorb every problem.
My first manager used me to fill every gap instead of developing me. I was expected to handle support, incident response, production releases, coding, architecture, project management, and people management—all at the same time. My second manager sidelined me, criticized me, and focused on replacing me instead of developing me.
I was once told I was "lucky to be useful, or I wouldn't still be here." That statement summed up the culture.
Leadership expected constant availability while frequently being unavailable themselves. When leadership was out, I was expected to cover. I spent over a year supporting both U.S. and India time zones, making true time off nearly impossible.
RealPage has incredibly talented people, but talented employees cannot overcome a culture where managers are consumed instead of developed. I loved building teams. I just wish the company had valued the people who built them.
