My experience with a toxic work situation.

Dec 25, 2020 33 Comments

I have seen a lot of posts about toxic work situations and I wanted to share my recent experience (including lessons learnt) .

I was interviewing early this year and I had 2 job offers from 2 promising startups. Nextdoor was one of them.

As soon as the recruiter and hiring manager heard that I had another offer they made me an exploding offer (24 hour expiration). I just recently learnt it is a pressure tactic and a huge red flag. However at that time I was naive and fell for it and chose to join Nextdoor.

There were red flag behaviors right from the beginning, pings about non urgent work after 10pm and complaints to the manager if I didn't respond to them immidiately. Demands to work weekends even after I had completed my work for the sprint, micromanagement through constant pings about status updates etc

I pushed back against these and this made me a target for bullying. Not going to go into too many details but the bullying included weekly threats to fire me for being "too slow" followed by reminders that I was on a work visa.

I escalated to HR which didn't prove too useful. I requested a team change but the HR was mostly trying to convince me that I had misunderstood my manager (about him wanting to fire me) and at one point even telling me I should always assume the best of intentions from my manager (lol).

I had seen enough, it had just been 6 months since I had last interviewed so i got onto the job market and within a couple of weeks had another offer for a higher TC. Sent in my notice and seem to have caught everybody by surprise (so the threats to fire me were empty threats). They attempted to change my mind but it was too late by then. There was a lot of hand wringing from the leadership and suddenly they were worried other engineers might follow me out and were all ears for any feedback I had lol. The HR also said she will be "retraining" the manager during the exit interview.

I feel great and can finally enjoy the holidays in peace and get back to a job I actually like!

Lessons learnt :
1. The only solution to a toxic situation is team change or leaving the company asap. Doesn't matter if it's been less than a year.
2. HR will probably not be able to help you if you escalate but I believe it's still important to do so (when it is safe) and document it. Bullying gets worse if the victim doesn't pushback.
3. Having a good empathetic manager is very important to one's career.

Happy holidays and best wishes for those of y'all looking to get out of a similar situation!

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TOP 33 Comments
  • Point #3 is what people really have to understand. It doesn't matter how much Leetcode you do, if you have a PhD or went to a top school, if you get hired onto a team with a poor manager it can stifle your career.

    Life is not formulaic. 1 + 1 does not always come out to 2 when we're talking about what's fair and unfair in the events of life. You can do everything right, and still fail. And you'll see people who seemingly did it all wrong, and yet they succeed. There's something more to it all.

    But thanks OP for sharing your experience. Growing wise, you are. Merry Christmas.
    Dec 25, 2020 3
    • In a situation like that, I think it's about evaluating what's best for you. When it comes to working for corporations, don't allow yourself to remain in a situation that's making you unhappy or stagnating your progress out of some sense of loyalty or respect towards a manager.

      It's not personal, it's business. If the manager and team are going in a direction that doesn't align with your vision for your career, then do what you must. Remember, your billion dollar annual revenue corporate employer would never allow you to keep your job if for some reason your vision and goals didn't align with their expectations, they would fire you.

      As human beings, we're personable and sympathetic towards one another. Sometimes at work, one can incorrectly allow their feelings for their manager or teammates to define their feeling towards the corporation as a whole. Do what's best for you, but don't burn any bridges. Explain yourself on the way out the door, and go on to a position, team or organization that matches what you want out of life and your day to day work. Don't feel a single iota of guilt. Act within your best interests. We're talking navigating corporate life here, not families or kids. Be shrewd, but kind.
      Dec 25, 2020
    • Amazon / Eng
      shavira

      Go to company page Amazon Eng

      shavira
      very well written. Thank you Microsoft. I read both of your essays.
      Dec 25, 2020
  • Amazon / Eng
    shavira

    Go to company page Amazon Eng

    shavira
    hi OP. My thought is below

    if a manager is empathetic or not depends on the pressure too. Personality is not the only factor.

    If the manager is building a new product with huge impact and tons of engineering challenges, he or she is under high pressure and can be a bit ruthless even if hr or she doesn't mean to..
    However, it is much easier for a manager to be empathetic if he is just responsible for a product with no visibility.
    Dec 25, 2020 7
    • I’m currently at Nextdoor and my team is chill and understanding. Never really feel like they’re hovering over me or pressuring me
      Jan 8, 2021
    • OP
      Good for you but you do realize that your positive experience doesn't negate my absolutely awful experience at Nextdoor right?

      I wasn't happy with the way Nextdoor managed my complaint, they seem to take it seriously only after I quit. This makes me think there are more bad managers out there in this company.
      Jan 15, 2021
  • Amazon / Eng
    shavira

    Go to company page Amazon Eng

    shavira
    hi OP. would be great if you can share your thought on the question below..

    what if your manager is empathetic, but he fails to increase the engineering scope of your team i.e. your team are always doing operation work that your sister team hate

    shall you leave the manager or not?
    Dec 25, 2020 3
    • Amazon / Eng
      shavira

      Go to company page Amazon Eng

      shavira
      i see
      I have seen many chill teams at Amazon, but I feel they are chill because there is literally no engineering work for those teams. They just do operation and everybody had good wlb so they are chill.
      Dec 25, 2020
    • Amazon I wrote you a little essay in the other comment thread, but I think those other Amazon teams your talking about have employees who, when they interviewed, didn't realize things would be chill that way.

      Remember, those employees are making the same (or very similar) amount of money as the one's working 80hrs a week. While things might be chill and the work isn't sexy, one can argue that they're in a great position for maximizing their physical, mental and emotional well being while still making a lot of money.

      However those people on chill teams probably won't see rapid ambitious career advancement the way others on more important teams would. So there's pros and cons to everything, you just have to find out what you want for yourself at this stage in your life. If I was 40 and had a wife and kids, then put me on the chill team! Or even if I'm young but outside of work want to have a very active social life, or build my own business or something else like that, then also put me on the chill team!

      But if I want to advance within the organization, climb the ranks, get 800k TC, become an important senior manager or engineer, than definitely get me out of this laid back chill team and around some people who are driving hard for success.
      Dec 25, 2020
  • Sorry you had to deal with that. FWIW when I joined (yrs ago) they explicitly said there was no offer deadline and that you should only join ND if you wanted to be here.

    My current work environment isn't like yours, so I'm happy that you were able to get out and find a better manager.

    If you feel comfortable, please share your base salary + options on joining. It will help calibrate how they're paying folks nowadays.
    Dec 27, 2020 1
    • OP
      At Nextdoor base was 155k and I got 3k options per year. Not shabby but well below the offer I eventually accepted from my current employer just 6 months later.

      Interesting it sounds like experiences vary wildly between teams. A thing to note is the team that interviewed me was different from the team I eventually ended up joining, I wasn't really given a choice. The only person from my team I met during the interview was the hiring manager and he wasn't honest about team culture and WLB during the interview
      Dec 28, 2020
  • I joined around when you joined Nextdoor, but my team has had very good wlb Ive found. Interesting how important a manager is
    Dec 28, 2020 0