Extreme pressure to work day and night and pressure to not complain - Software Engineer Rivian Employee Review

1.0
Jul 16, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- This company could become big, very big - CEO seems more likeable.

Cons

The company culture is a myth. The Line managers in the software side are extremely demanding and think that employees working from home should work day and night. There is absolutely no regard for employees family life. Meetings are regularly held starting 8am in morning all the way up to 6pm in evening. There are actually full day of meetings for more than 7 to 8 hours. Many times skipping lunch to be part of meeting is not only encouraged but the bragged about. The expectation is for engineers to finish their work in evening and night. Line managers and directors hold town halls scolding employees to not work so hard but then the same day organizes one-on-one meetings with each employee pressuring to work and deliver more. My direct manager works 4am in morning regularly and does an all nighter and encourages others to do so. Bad example is set by managers themselves and employees are forced to copy. Director forces managers to not put more time estimation in JIRA project tracking system so that his bosses do not see higher man hour requirements to deliver a feature. However forces employees under him to deliver in super-human like speed. Basically the Director wants his bosses to see that his team can deliver a feature which should take 2 months in under 2 week all the while the employees did not work more than 8 hours a day. Utter disregard for employees family. There are kids in family too who need to go school and picked up. But meetings are held exactly at time of pickup and drop off. The behavior is such that there is no such thing as covid in the world. 200 employees are asked to fly and meet for week in office meetings from 8am to 9pm. With current infections spreading to vaccinated people too..this is going to be a super spreader event. The neck breaking work and the pace will break back of all employees. While Directors and VPs ask employees to take a break, they privately pressure to deliver more. too bad. This is another Tesla or even worse.

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Rivian Response
4y
As our CEO, RJ, regularly speaks to in our bi-weekly All Hands meetings, we are navigating a huge period of growth while working to deliver on our ambitious goals. With that in mind, we know that the only way we can do our best work is to take care of ourselves and one another. While I don’t know all the details of your situation, it is unacceptable for anyone to feel they are unable to take the time they need for themselves. In order to ensure we are holding our leaders and all colleagues to the highest standard, we ask for direct feedback so that we may investigate and resolve any concerns quickly. It’s for this reason we offer several support options, including your local People Partner and a 24/7 anonymous hotline. If, for whatever reason, you are not comfortable utilizing these options, please reach out to me directly. Gathering your input firsthand will better equip us to ensure we address and solve for any root cause issues, so that this may not be anyone else’s experience moving forward. Hope to hear from you soon, Helen Chief People Officer

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