- Very low employee morale and dismissive leadership response. Widespread dissatisfaction has been acknowledged, but leadership’s response has been discouraging. In an August 2 memo, the CEO stated:
“If the requirements dictated by this dynamic do not align to your personal desires, you have every right to find a career opportunity that is suitable to your aspirations and needs.”
- Extreme micromanagement and surveillance culture. Management tracks badge swipes, network usage, parking lot entry/exit times, and questions employees about lunch breaks. In-office hours are publicly tracked and factored into performance discussions, creating a culture of distrust and anxiety.
- Unsustainable workload and effectively 24/7 expectations. Despite being a salaried role, 60-hour weeks are common. The MyAT&T application requires near-constant support due to its complexity, constant production changes, and highly distributed team structure. This level of support is not clearly disclosed in the job description.
- Inconsistent engineering standards across teams. Some offshore teams push changes directly to production with minimal testing and without proper CI/CD safeguards. U.S.-based engineers are routinely expected to fix resulting production issues outside of normal working hours, while standards are enforced unevenly.
- No meaningful onboarding or ramp-up. New hires are dropped into a large, poorly documented, and constantly changing codebase and are expected to contribute immediately with minimal guidance or support.
- Chaotic return-to-office execution. The RTO mandate has been implemented without adequate planning, resulting in a shortage of desks and parking spaces and adding unnecessary friction to the workday.
