To those who are curious about the pay - no they pay below market standards which makes it worse. I took the job for their false claim of having a good work culture. Not enough employees to inquire about the work culture as well. So yeah before commenting have a teaspoon of empathy!

UX/UI designer

I do not want to mention the startup name hence I have the freelancer tag in my profile

I recently joined a startup. First they were micromanaging me as I joined there after a break to see if I can actually work or not. Later when they came to know my skills and loved my work, they de...

Welcome to Indian Startups's Private Community

I recently joined a startup. First they were micromanaging me as I joined there after a break to see if I can actually work or not. Later when they came to know my skills and loved my work, they decided to hire one more person either a junior or equivalent to accompany me. The HR had confirmed verbally that I'll be the senior one and the person will be a junior. This didn't happen. Although they keep claiming it verbally even now they keep on favouring the junior as she is from the same place as that of the co-founders and always keeps me secondary. Have you faced this manipulation - if yes what did you do to tackle until you find another job?

Biasing in office environments

Biasing in office environments- Grapevine

Welcome to Office Gossip's Private Community

One of the old employees dropped a bomb of an e-mail against the entire leadership of PhonePe Mass Offline leadership addressing about mental harassment, hostile comments, threatening to sack, and pushing employees to have no work life balance. This mail was sent to the Founder Sameer Nigam and the HR Head.

Ex Employee shares a mail about workplace culture and toxicity at PhonePe

Founder

So I work in a new york based startup and they hired me as project manager. I am from tech bg with 1 year of experience and no mgmt experience. Completing 2 years in this company and have created processes from scratch to increase team size and team dynamics. There was one conversation which HR heard out of context and started politics with CEO. Now in my review their "trust" overshadowed my "performance". They even out of nowhere telling my leaves were not judiciary! Now i don't trust this company anymore. Already my managers were too underperforming and disappointing. 

There were many scenarios where I took in charge of anyone's absence and even in my absence took care of things. 

They giving NO raise !!! Not even something to match inflation!

I am feeling very exhausted with company's policy and CEO being nosy in each and everything. And too disappointed in company's "trust" definitions.

Talked to my manager and cleared out my performance. Talking to CEO in next days to reclarify their issues. 

Any help or word of advise???

Disappointed!!

Software Engineer

Disappointed after overperformance!!

Welcome to Software Engineers's Private Community

I recently started a new job. I would like to share some of the experiences I have had with my manager. I am wondering if these are red flags or if I am maybe being paranoid or thinking too much.

It was quite difficult for me to get into this company and this job. The company is quite great and I was quite excited but some of the experiences I have had with my immediate manager have made me a bit apprehensive.
I would like to share them and hear opinions about it.

Here are some things which have happened which I have not liked so far - 

1. I speak to a Senior Engineer one day and next day my manager asks me if anyone asked me to speak to him. 
2. I shared an insight about a new tool which we can use on a deployment pipeline on the overall pod (under my skip manager). My manager immediately called me and started asking my status update and replied 'Discussing 1-1' in the group to prevent anyone getting visibility of the idea. 
3. My manager pings me whenever I go offline and recently he asked me in a passive aggressive way, 'Please monitor your Teams status. It was away for most of today.' I now feel kind of paranoid to never get up as I feel my Teams status is being monitored.

Is my manager too much of a micromanaging red flag ? I started a new job and my manager monitors my Teams online status.

Software Developer

I'm working as a Frontend developer (SDE-1) with 1.5yoe, I joined this startup 4 months back. Earlier I was getting paid 9lpa and later I was offered 12lpa without even asking for my previous compensation. I accepted because my earlier organisation was very toxic. Now coming to the point, 

I came to know that for the same level and same role they're paying 16+lpa. And this is making me mad at them. 

Within 3 months I'm handling 1 of their 2 products (customer facing) all alone. And I'm doing great work tbh (not boasting) but if they have 10 major features. I have developed 4 of them all alone, solved really critical down time bugs and improved the product. 

Now I own this product and if any bugs come, I'm the person who's assigned the work.

I want to have a chat with the Founder but I'm not sure what to say and he's a guy who will try to save the money at all costs. 

I'm really mad at this point of time and I'm planning to leave in a few months. 

If I have a chat with him and he says something harsh, I will resign then and there I'm triggered to this level. 

And there was no kind of appreciation from them, I'm taking most tickets during the sprints and delivering quality code, communicating well and thinking in terms of product, if there is anything which can be improved I ask from them.

How do I have a chat with him and what do I say?
Current CTC - 12lpa
Expected CTC - 16 - 20lpa
YOE- 1.5 (planning to have the call around 3-4 months later), so I will be almost 2 yoe by then.

Pay disparity in my startup.

I joined a startup in 2021 with a 6 LPA package. After about a year I learnt that one of my colleague, who had joined 3 month before me, and who's from the same batch (2021) as mine is being paid 12 LPA for the same role, even though I'm much better than him in terms of programming knowledge and development skills. Learning that killed all the motivation I had to work and now I feel cheated and deceived. How should I deal with this situation ?

I'm being paid 50% of colleague for the same role.

It can be either a strange workplace policy, an altercation with a manager or absolutely anything else.

What's the most toxic incident you've come across at your workplace?

Consultant

Welcome to Business Roles's Private Community

I feel like this is a general problem that people who join startups in really early stages face. They get hired to do a function, then once the startup picks up, someone more senior gets hired and they’re practically demoted. 

This is happening third time to me, but still haven’t figured how to deal with it. The first time, someone from Stanford got hired and I felt really insecure about it. We got along pretty well but I couldn’t take that we were of the same age and this person was managing me despite me being around in the company for longer. 

That person left, my function was changed as well and again after a year, I was layered by another person. 

I just joined a new company four months ago and feel like the same thing is about to happen. I know they’re hiring someone. Makes me feel anxious about how I’ll lose ownership of things I’ve been doing and I haven’t even gotten the chance to prove myself yet. 

Do I just wait it out? Or talk to the founders about it? I understand where they come from, they do what’s best for the company. But I feel like I should look out for myself as well.

Startup folks - How did you get ahead in your career after being layered?

Growth Manager

How to deal with an office buly who tries to take credit of my work, tried undermine me in front of manager. She never mentions if I had done the job but she exaggerates in case I fall behind, I mean I noticed this 4-5 times now. I am at this startup and I have no idea why is behaving like that with me only....she works from home so I don't even get to interact with her or to know why exactly she tries belittle me in front our manager.....

Office buly

Backend engineer

One of my colleagues makes more money than me and also some other folks in the company. 
He's kind of a junior to us but making more than us. 

I know I shouldn't get bothered about this but it's easier to say than adopt that thinking. 

How do you folks deal with these kinds of things? 

[ Before someone says he might be good at the job I am working with them so I know he's pretty average. ]

How to not feel bad when colleagues make more money ?

So I joined a startup on Oct, 23(6 months completed).  They are struggling to raise funds. From Jan, they started layoffs from ops and customer support, went to major cost-cutting: no tea, snacks, giving the floor to rent, restricting the leaves: like for leave, you have to get approval from HR and the CEO, not the manager.  I'm in a tech team, and multiple products are lined up for release, so work is there, but ultra micro-managing. I'm getting opportunities but I'm not sure whether to switch or not. 

I leave my last job in 5 months due to their funding issue. That's why I'm skeptical to leave or not. 

Would love to hear advice.

To switch or not

Joined as a management trainee in a city I went to for the first time (totally different culture, language issues etc), had a very poor performing team (at times unethical sales practices), made a few personnel changes. New person who joined has great contacts in the market and is helping me grow. Now my boss says it's all because of his connections and experience, what have you done? When the team was bad, I was incompetent, when the team is good, they are good what am I doing? Is this fair?

Area sales manager

Sales manager

I got laid off in Jan. I was a senior product analyst at a well known startup.
YoE ~4
Pay was 18L + 2L variable + ESOP
After months of search I landed an offer at another smaller startup which raised Series B in sept-22
They are offering me 16+2 + ESOP after looking at my payslip and I have no other offer in hand citing economic conditions.
How do I go about it? I have 1 other interview going on and few with final round results pending, but uncertain if those will get offered.

Lowballing check

Business analyst

It's slightly long - It would be great if you could guide me!

Total Experience: 7 years
Domain: Sales
Education: Tier 2 Engineering College
Current TC:  Rs. 60L + ESOPs (mentioning the compensation as it's relevant)

Throughout my life, I have been discriminated against due to not having a pedigree. I have had to work my ass off to reach where I am today.

Currently I'm at a senior position in a startup incubated by an MNC. I still face the following concerns:

1. Extreme difficulty while applying for jobs; Example: my exceptional performance in my previous organisation was not known outside and since I didn't have any "pedigree", I was considered overpaid in the job market.

2. I did join at a decent hike after an year of search and even in the new company, I don't command a lot of respect due to the lack of fancy tags like IIT/IIM/ISB/Booth/LSB/Insead,etc.

What should I do? Does an MBA make any financial sense to me at this Experience and Compensation? If yes, where should I try for an MBA?

Should I do an MBA?

Sales Leader

One of my close coworker rather a best friend, recently talked to his manager for promotion. However the hike after promo what manager said was ~25%. However same experience, same team -same experience guy who got promo in last December cycle got fixed around 28-30L. Now he had asked suggestions. He's fixed is coming around 24. 

He asked me how to get fairly treated. Both are having same experience, same team. However the earlier guy joined at higher fixed. Is there any way to see this as he can't compare himself directly.

I am not expecting promotion this year but this seems to be a genuine question to be treated fair.
If any such scenario comes to me , I would simply get an offer and leave. However I want to know the correct approach.

Hike negotiation

I remember during tech boom, almost every one was jumping jobs every 6months. I am at mid senior level in my company and some of us who did not hopped jobs where consider failure. 
We had very hard time retaining people around. Now been more than a year and no one is resigning. Wonder will developers learn if another cycle of boom comes in.

Developer made market worst.

Tech lead

I’m currently working in a support project and whatever I heard from my seniors and fellow guys at work is that nobody stays with this client and company for more than a year or two. I joined here as a fresher with some really good dev skills but the work and tech here is not allowing me to put them to use. I’m feeling like quitting from here, but again need to brush up my skills as I did not put them to use over a period of 14 months. Also there is a lot of micromanagement going on and I’m not comfortable with that. No one takes ownership of work and tries to push it to you and make you work on it.

How to get out of support projects?

Six months back I started working on AI based  project which is an R&d from scratch when I completed stage one New people who are higher position than me started working with me to extend it to next phase I felt very happy but the things didn't happened in expected way. I thought they came to me to coloborate and help the project but I came to know at some point that they are just here to showcase the work I did, prepare ppts to explain clients. Moreover project manager showed favouritism by giving liberal tasks or already completed tasks which don't need any research to be done. I didnt focused on this because my focus is learning. I have completed phase 2 on my own which is converting to project, and when I completed it they started asking me to share code and provide KT this made me suspicious, So I didn't shared the code, dragged it for 2 months they tried to achieve by their own it didn't succeed for them so again they started asking me to share knowledge. I know if I share the code and give KT, I will be thrown out from this. They started ghosting me by doing prank calls like whether I am looking for an oppurtunity outside. After some days I decided this not my place to work, my focus should be on skills and solving problems with these politics in my initial stage of tech will not going to help in long run. So I shared and provided KT then next day I am released from the project. After few months I am asked to force resign because of being on bench.

I thinking to share these things to my CEO, along with proofs it upto them to take any action or not. The same thing happened to my colleague in another project. I don't want this to repeat for others.

Need your suggestion on this.
Company persistent systems private limited.

Want to escalate ground politics to CEO

Me and a friend joined a company together as freshers. Over time we both grew our knowledge and got comfortable with our daily tasks. Our project manager happened to be from around my friend's place, and upon learning that, they both started having frequent conversations and over time became really good with each other while I had never spoken with the manager. And with this, the manager started having a bias towards my friend. And then one day, he asks my friend to take up the assistant team lead (ATL) position without considering anyone else, in spite of having better candidates for the role (people with 5+ years of experience). Now I'm being assigned tasks from my good friend. He sometimes tends to micro manage me, which I really don't like. But what I hate the most is when he assigns me bugs from his tasks, I mean it's his task right, why should I deal with his mess (bugs), and secondly I don't even have any knowledge about his task so wouldn't he himself fix the bugs faster than anyone else? But nope, he just doesn't wanna deal with it, and since he's the boss, he gets to decide who works on the tasks. I'm honestly not liking taking orders from my friend, how do I deal with this situation?

Biasing in office environments

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