In my experience at Appical, conversations about promotions, bonuses, and recognition were consistently avoided or delayed. Recognition was often symbolic rather than meaningful—more than once, “appreciation” for strong work took the form of a literal rock award. You had to chase leadership just to have good work acknowledged.
The product is messy and direction changes are frequent, which creates constant fire drills. Engineering is stretched thin across too many projects with not enough people, leading to burnout and high stress. Meanwhile, headcount and attention skew heavily toward marketing/sales/management, leaving the teams building the product under-resourced. There are smart, hardworking engineers here, but the environment makes it hard for them to succeed.
