Toxic, self-destructive company - werkgeversreview Software Engineer bij gWorks

Good company to work for

Don't have any so far.

Consider this your immersive training in pivoting without direction, functioning without clear goals, and treating the absence of coherent strategy as a feature, not a bug. (What passes for strategy here can generously be described as concepts of a plan; directionally adjacent to a goal if the wind is right.) You will work alongside genuinely talented people who become real colleagues, and will have the opportunity to do meaningful work if you're a self-starter. Depending on your department, your direct manager may be a genuine advocate who fights hard for you. There are good managers here; they just aren't evenly distributed.

Your role is never secure. Leadership has discovered that nothing says 'we have a strategy' quite like a biweekly reorg. You'll know it happened when someone's Slack is suddenly deactivated and you spend the rest of the day piecing together who absorbed their responsibilities (or whether anyone did) like a corporate murder mystery. Budgetary constraints are a frequent explanation for role eliminations — right up until those same roles are quietly reposted weeks later, either under a new title or for someone leadership already knows. Working hard, building real things, and earning promotions will not protect you when the wrong person decides your expertise is inconvenient rather than invaluable. Management style varies wildly by department. In many departments, you'll either be completely untethered with no direction whatsoever, or managed with an iron fist by someone whose grasp of realistic timelines can only be described as optimistic. It's Lord of the Flies or a stopwatch, depending on which door you walk through. Clear goals are a concept, not a commitment. Priorities shift without warning, strategy changes with the seasons, and "alignment" is discussed in every meeting and achieved in none of them. If you need executive support to get things done, pack a lunch — you'll be waiting a while. Working with ambiguity isn't a skill they're looking for here; it's the entire job description.