The founders of SalesRabbit decided that a few years of experience coding their own product means that they understand how to run a development team. But worse than this, they believe that they understand much better than their own developers. Developers they hired, developers with 10-15 years of experience in the industry, developers who are deep in the day-to-day of the company, who can see exactly what is working and what is not working.
This has led to a dev team in shambles. If you look closely at the recent positive reviews of this company from customer service and salespeople, you'll notice a repeated theme of "problematic releases". The founders have refused to give anyone else any sort of authority when it comes to development. For a long time, they were running a flat structure (which was a disaster), but even now, when they have moved back to smaller teams, Team Lead is just an empty title. They aren't allowed any real autonomy or authority to make decisions or choices. The founders make all the decisions, including some really bad choices of pushing out code that wasn't properly tested.
They say a lot of things, but then their actions don't back it up. Developers hear things like "take time to write tests", and "spend some time each day studying new things", and "we trust you to make good decisions". But then are constantly reminded that they aren't finishing their projects fast enough and that they have to get things out ASAP because the features were promised to a client. At a meeting this year, devs were reminded that "we just suck at releases", yet management won't allow any full-time employees to stop the coding they are doing in order to fix the release process. Priorities change with the wind.
Attempts to fix the dev culture are seen as undermining authority and a "toxic attitude". Every developer who has been at the company long enough to see the issues has serious concerns about the way the department is being run. Some are more vocal than others, and those ones are being driven out. Once you have been identified as having a bad attitude, nothing you say matters anymore.
SalesRabbit company values are Grit, Gratitude, and Curiosity. But the founders' actions show that the only one they really care about is Grit. If you are the type of worker who wants to just keep your head down and do what you are told, and doesn't mind working extra time so that you can deal with the disarray of the department, then you will probably thrive at SalesRabbit.
It all comes down to philosophy. If you believe that devs should just be happy someone is paying them, and you believe that all devs can easily be replaced, and you believe that it is more important to get today's work done than it is to spend some time so that tomorrow's work is easier, then you will fit right in.
But if you believe that the way to create a successful company is to hire and retain good dev talent, and give them what they need to succeed, and empower them with authority to do their job the way they think it should be done, then SalesRabbit is not the company for you.
