TheVentury

Unternehmenskultur

The atmosphere was mostly good by the time I started. Everyone was friendly.
Later on it got toxic. The leadership team tried to create a silicon-valley-like fake culture, singing their own praises, although the company was in great financial trouble and people were very dissatisfied.
Instead of listening to critique, people were silenced when they tried to talk about apparent problems. About 15-20 people left the company within 2022 because of those problems. Two IT teams practically dissolved.

Over the last years the financial situation was never good. This desperation for generating money was handed down to every single employee - so everyone was responsible to do everything they could to generate money. It was stressful. It also meant asking your private network and doing sales as an IT-person.

Often lack of communication lead to problems in projects. Unclear decision making and lack of structure. Processes were created but not followed. Tons of unproductive meetings, sometimes 5-6 in one day. General communication is done in one meeting once a week which is fine.

It was supportive and helpful between coworkers, and people tried to make it work. People were very approachable and nice. Often, people working together on projects cared much more about the quality of outcome than the management.

Work-life balance does not exist. The company tries to make its working model seem very flexible, but at the end of the day, it is only flexible for the company. Time tracking is detailed and tedious. Internal work (not booked on client) should be avoided at all costs.
They expect everyone to be personally invested, especially when it comes to the financial survival and the image of the company. This means whenever a client needs something, you have to jump. You should praise the company on social media.
Often times there was weekend work and long evenings/nights during the week, especially because of how the tasks were distributed. (this might not apply to other teams like "Growth" though)

They work "agile", but pressure everyone (at least in IT) to highly underestimate tasks. Basically you get tasks that are calculated in hours of time you can spend on them, and the time is mostly completely unrealistic and coming from the budget of the client.
Meaning: you are working under extreme time pressure to finish your work. If you don't manage, you either present shitty work to clients and or work extra hours on your own time. Most people chose the latter.

Lack of actual management and leadership. The leadership team is handing down responsibility. They set unrealistic goals and have minimal experience with people management. Good positions are given to those who never question the company, not those with the skills to do the work. People were hired and let go in the same year because of the financial situation.

This was very much dependent on the projects that the agency could get. Sometimes cool projects. In the last 1-2 years, instead of software, we developed simple websites. The scope was often unclear, and expectations were not well managed. Lack of quality overall.