“You aren’t leaving, we’re firing you” — this phrase was said to me a few years ago when I announced I was leaving a company, but it didn’t end there, there’s more to the story.
1 - Business Culture
Whenever we think about companies we want to work for, we usually think about the products, the technology, or even their strategy. However, behind each of these companies, there is something fundamental: the company culture.
If you’ve done interviews recently, you’ll have noticed that soft skills — that is, our personality — are increasingly important. Culture is the counterpart on the company’s side, and identifying when a culture matches us is a vital part of changing jobs.
2 - My Personal Experience with a Toxic Culture
Let’s set the scene: it was 2023 and I was at a company where I wasn’t happy. The main reason was that the engineering director lived in another country and our whole team was kept in the dark — not just me, or my manager, but everyone.
Everyone on my team was new, and a 4-hour time difference made collaboration difficult, though that’s not really an excuse for what I’m about to share.
As I was saying, the director didn’t tell us anything — no explanations about why things happened, no idea of the long-term roadmap, nothing. This is called gatekeeping, and working under such a system is very frustrating. We only knew what we’d be working on for a week or two ahead, and that was it.
Beyond that, we encountered teams that modified applications in our domain without telling us why, adding hundreds of lines of code, with just a brief message asking us to approve the change.
Besides that, the people were actually very nice; they even had an office in Mexico and I got along well with them. As you can imagine, people at that office suffered from this too, although not as much because their team had been around longer and had someone bridging communication with the director.
After about three months at the company, I got tired of the situation since nothing was changing and I decided to leave. I have to admit, I burned out a bit and that was one of the reasons I went freelance.
So far, all pretty normal — someone’s unhappy and decides to quit. But what happened next was surreal.
When I announced I was leaving, I first told my manager by a private call. I always recommend doing this, since it’s better for your manager or boss to know first, before HR is informed so they aren’t caught off guard. It’s just common courtesy and takes no effort.
After that, HR is notified by email. And finally, you let your teammates know.
Shortly after sending the email, I got a message from someone in HR saying my services were no longer needed and that I was being let go.
That was pretty surprising, because it’s totally illegal (at least in Europe). But honestly, I didn’t really care since they still had to pay me that last month for free.
On its own, that’s already pretty shocking. This order came straight from the company director — the same gatekeeper.
My boss, as shocked as I was, obviously complained and pointed out you can’t treat people like that. Well, what do you know? She was also fired on that same day. As you can imagine, this is also completely illegal.
I don’t know if she pressed charges, but had she done so, she would have won the case and received substantial compensation.
If you’re curious, check the company’s Glassdoor and you’ll see how ALL the reviews mention this person. It’s a shame, because the tech stack is amazing, the pay is good, though they have monitoring software to check you’re at your PC.
I didn’t write this, but I have an idea who did:
3 - Healthy Cultures
A healthy culture is one that recognizes people and promotes their growth — and we’re not just talking about development, but any type of role, where everyone is treated equally.
Many companies might try to impress with a room for ping-pong, or even a TV with an Xbox — but that isn’t culture, it’s just a feature of the office. And frankly, no one cares because people just want to work from home.
We should recognize healthy cultures when we see behaviors such as not blaming people for mistakes — mistakes are on the company, and finger-pointing can really affect people, especially juniors.
Figuring out if a company is good for you is something you should do during interviews — ask questions about it. You could ask about the roadmap for the next few months, or for an example of how a big recent project was conceived and what the process was like. If they’re evasive, that’s a red flag.
Reading reviews on sites like Glassdoor can help, but remember people mostly leave reviews to complain, so take them with a grain of salt and don’t stress. If a company has 1,000 employees and 50 bad reviews, that likely means the other 950 are doing fine. Still, you might spot patterns in all the reviews. If everyone says they’re forced to work weekends without pay, that’s probably true; if just one person says it, it’s probably not a common issue.
Finally, remember that both the interview and probation period are a two-way street — you don’t have to say yes to every offer you get.
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