Toxic culture and no direction - Senior Sofware Engineer commercetools Employee Review

I’ve been with commercetools for over 5 years now. Compared to my previous experience at much larger companies, the culture here is positive and supportive. The biggest standout for me is the work-life balance and the opportunity to work with an amazing set of people. As a working parent, I’m able to contribute effectively without the burnout or toxic work culture I experienced at previous thousands-strong firms. The benefits package is also quite competitive for the US market. It’s been a positive tenure working with a talented global team that respects one another in the workplace.

The path for upward mobility can sometimes feel less defined. While there is plenty of room for talented people to make an impact, structured internal growth and promotion trajectories can be limited as the organization matures. However, I see that the management is now working to improve this.

The first line managers and individual contributors were some of the best people I’ve worked with, but they live in fear of layoffs every day.

The overall company culture is the worst I’ve ever experienced and I believe that is due to unclear and unempathetic leadership. It is extremely toxic and fear-based - I hope my colleagues can get out of there as soon as possible. There was no clear company strategy and it felt like the CEO was taking things one day at a time and didn’t care about his employees at all. There’s been several rounds of layoffs, including one 7 days before Christmas. The CEO approval rate speaks for itself. In the 2025 yearly review cycle, the CEO decided that almost no one was allowed to receive an “outstanding” rating because the company did not meet its revenue targets - something my more veteran colleagues had never experienced at commercetools. In order to get a promotion there, you needed two outstanding reviews in a row. So needless to say, they won’t be promoting people. A couple things to note: first, our yearly review cycles are based on the individual goals we set for ourselves - many of us overperformed on our goals and rightfully deserved an “outstanding” — and received one from our managers — but were bumped down to “strong”. Second, the CEO reinstated Presidents Club for the sales team members who met their individual goals, which is a luxury, all-inclusive vacation for them and their spouses. So, the AEs that met their individual goals are being rewarded with a vacation, but non-sales employees who also met their goals were penalized with unfairly low ratings because the the company as a whole didn’t sell enough. So those of us who worked very hard all year in the hopes of getting a small promotion did not get one, while sales gets a vacation despite underperforming as a team.