Golden Frog Reviews

When I say CEO, I am referring to Sunday Yokubaitis. When I say Leadership, I am referring to the CEO, VPs, and Director-level roles. There are previous and current Leaders/employees at Golden Frog that can very easily substantiate the things I have put in this review. Most (if not all) decisions made by the Leadership are short-sighted; you will see that in the rest of this post. --- Leadership treats many decisions as ripping off a band-aid -- doing something that in the moment is harsh, but they think in the long run will be good for the organization. In truth, a better metaphor for their actions would be a small blade slicing at a new part of the body every single day. And that is how you can describe the impact that the Leadership group makes on the morale at Golden Frog -- as one former leader put it: death from a 1,000 cuts. And to be clear, the fish rots at the head. Many Leaders have come and gone in the business, but the morale and culture remain the same, because of the person running the company -- he is the common denominator. The CEO creates a culture of fear that constantly leads the VPs and Directors to make bad/rash decisions. I've had multiple leaders (ones that have left Golden Frog, and ones that are still there, but have shifted to different roles) tell me that they are so glad they do not work for the CEO anymore. One said to me that now that they are on the outside looking in, they see that working for the CEO led them to be a distrusting leader of their staff. They said to me that they used to be so frustrated with the staff for not maintaining quality work, but now that they are on the outside of the management chain looking in they can see that it wasn't the team members' fault at all, but instead the fear created from the top-down. --- I was in a couple meetings where the CEO essentially assigned blame to all of the VPs and Directors for the bad Glassdoor reviews, instead of properly using the time to ask what he could do to help improve morale. There were a few times where members of Leadership (not the CEO) were trying to figure out who wrote a bad Glassdoor review, or who submitted negative feedback on an internal survey -- as a way to sort of rationalize the poor feedback as irrelevant instead of trying to see how they could use the feedback to improve the culture. It seemed clear to me that they approached things this way because of the Leadership culture being created from the top. --- Often I had Leaders tell me that the CEO just got done being very angry at them about something; even though what he was angry about would go against something he had said weeks (or even days) earlier. For instance, the CEO saying he doesn't care about dates or timelines for projects, and then Leaders acting very fearful about having to tell the CEO about a missed date, even if it was a minimal delay. This clearly seemed to be because the CEO was getting angry at these Leaders when a date was missed. This often led to my team pushing out work to customers that hadn't been fully tested, which would result in bugs being found by customers, and which would then make my team look bad (internally and externally). --- I would often be told by my leaders to always be positive with my team, and never show any negativity about decisions being made at the top, even though I would be in meetings with leaders where they were doing the exact same thing -- including when my leader told me he was updating his resume to get employment somewhere else, or (as mentioned above) leaders telling me that they were pissed off because the CEO just got done being very angry at them over something ridiculous. --- Other examples of what it is like working at Golden Frog: I can’t begin to describe how many times I heard someone in Leadership explaining the proper way to speak to the CEO. If there is this much conversation going on about how to speak to the CEO, here is your sign that he is in fact the one that needs coaching, not the people around him. One of the top leaders (in the management chain above me) would sometimes say in meetings that "everyone is replaceable", which is an awful thing to say in front of staff. Leaders speaking ill (or spreading misinformation) about team members or teams in other departments, without working with Team Leads to address issues. This would lead to teams or team members having invalid reputations with Leadership. I constantly had to do what I could to turn these perceptions around, but often Leaders were too stubborn to allow their perceptions to be changed. Incredibly talented, veteran employees being let go for irrational, invalid reasons -- I wish I could get into details on this, but I need to keep with Glassdoor policies. Company not paying an exiting employee their PTO for irrational, invalid reasons -- I wish I could get into details on this, but I need to keep with Glassdoor policies. Tech Debt is a bad word here. Multiple Leaders would say that we should change the term "tech debt" to something else because the CEO does not respond well to that term. In general, do not expect to get time to work on Tech Debt. The company is incredibly stingy when it comes to compensation, benefits, etc. Often team members not even getting a cost of living adjustment. The CEO has such little trust of the staff that he has to approve every purchase, no matter how small they are. I could keep going for hours. These examples are just the tip of the iceberg, even if we’re only talking about the last year. --- So, needless to say, the comments made in the other negative Glassdoor reviews are (for the most part) incredibly accurate. I would recommend that everyone stay away from this place, unless you want to put yourself through truly one of the most difficult work experiences out there.

The TL/DR version is that you should not work here. Ever. This is a toxic work environment and is by far the worst company that I've ever worked for, and here's why: Nepotism: This is a privately owned company. The couple that owns it has most of their children working there. They are untouchable and can't be held accountable, even by HR, even when their behavior is terrible and would be unacceptable anywhere else. Terrible Management: A few key members of the leadership team have never worked anywhere else, and it shows. They have no idea what industry norms are and they act like children, throwing temper tantrums and at times openly yelling at people in meetings when anyone says anything in opposition to their ideas. Micromanagement is a way of life here, in the extreme. If you want your boss to treat you like you've never worked anywhere else and your opinion doesn't count and to just shut up and follow his/her exact instructions, then look no further. This is your place. Want your boss to tell you one thing, then you do it and it doesn't work out, and he blames you for making that decision? They got that here in spades. Inappropriate Behavior: There is rampant good ol' boy network behavior here. Racism? Check! Sexism? Check! Unprofessional behavior in meetings? Absolutely! Wildly inappropriate/vulgar jokes about people who work here? Yep, everyday. Oh, and most of that is from management. Also, if you are left-leaning in your politics, or just don't want to talk about politics at work, forget it. This is like a Fox News cheerleader squad and they have no problem spewing out their beliefs to you and attacking any ideas that are different. Final thoughts... Most of the SUPER positive reviews on here are from management which is trying to raise their terrible Glass Door rating. They are not reviews from people telling the truth. I know, I was one of the people encouraged by them to write good reviews while I was there because no one wants to work for a company that has 2 out of 5 stars or less and they were having a hard time filling their positions. This company is the same as Giganews, Powerhouse Management, and Data Foundry, though DF is mostly operated independently. They are all just separate legal entities but share most of the staff. Run away. Seriously. Run away or you will regret it. Don't believe me? Well, go ahead and take the job, but when you hate it, just remember that someone who went through the purgatory that is that company tried to warn you and you chose not to listen.