Pros
The teamwork and resilience of the Berlin-based engineers was remarkable. Despite the challenges, the colleagues worked tirelessly, often going above and beyond to support one another and deliver quality work under intense pressure.
Cons
However, as is the case with many companies, the slogan "do something good today" existed only outside the doors of this organization. Inside, there was barely any mention of making a positive impact on society. The engineering team was overwhelmed with unrelenting pressure from every direction, spending their weeks buried in work and weekends simply recovering to prepare for the next cycle. Leadership was either absent or inadequate. While the engineering team was based in Berlin, management operated from the US, treating the Berlin team more like contractors than integral employees. Communication between product and engineering was minimal, and questions about refining requirements were often ignored, leading to wasted time on tasks that should have been clarified before reaching development. The company's structure further contributed to a disconnect between the product and sales teams and reality. Pushback from the engineering team was regularly dismissed, and features were sold that the already overburdened engineers simply couldn’t deliver, especially with the necessary level of testing and quality. The leadership team lacked the experience and cohesiveness needed, often managing with fear and control rather than empowering teams. This led to micromanagement and delays in key areas instead of fostering growth and autonomy within the teams. During one of the most intense crunch periods, employees were praised for working weekends and given "after-hours" coupons to continue working from home after a full day’s work. Meanwhile, the management team flew to a co-working space in Mexico, inviting employees to join if they could cover their own flights and accommodations. In another instance, a coworker who became sick was publicly reprimanded for coming into the office, even though spreading illness during crunch time seemed less of a concern. Without leadership present, the engineering team was left to manage the company’s most critical delivery. Tech leads were pushed to their limits, working unreasonable hours to meet product team demands, often rewriting entire services riddled with messy code—files with 30,000+ lines weren't uncommon. Any work-life balance disappeared. As pressure mounted, 1:1 meetings were canceled, retrospectives abandoned, and the team kept grinding to meet deadlines. Burnout became evident, with team members sacrificing their mental and physical health to meet the company’s unrealistic expectations. And what was the leadership's response? A simple "thank you for your help" following what they described as an "uneventful launch." The unseen hours and hard work were reduced to "help" and "uneventful." After enduring this chaos for six months, the result? Termination, remotely, during vacation, without access to social insurance benefits due to being out of the country at the time. This experience is shared with the hope that others may avoid such pitfalls and find themselves in healthier, more supportive work environments.