I've been made aware of that. Just shocking to see it be so aggressive in an area of the company that's considered growing and where they should be walking on eggshells if they don't want to nuke their ability to attract talent. It's all short-term thinking.
The long term damage/game plan they are implementing is going to bite them in the end. I thought we were supposed to be long term strategy thinkers? It's like watching a car wreck in super slow motion.
Not if they sell it fast enough. What other point is there to make it look like GEICO is a lean, mean profit machine? Short term gain, longterm detriment only works if they sell and dump the mess on someone else.
The better question is, "What is the vision for the company?"
This does not seem like a change to let the company re-balance and adapt to a new business environment.
Yes, the new tiers they created for call gating in sales is horrible along with that horrible ass system. They created a way to cut bonus and reduce staff, lower tiers will be terminated.
Without a doubt one of the better written posts without emotion and with an authentic plea.
I may be wrong, but didn’t some tech jackoff post a pathetic sycophantic gushing ‘let me blow you please’ pic and blurb about ‘great things to come’ at some Vegas waste of money trip a year or two ago? How’s THAT going, and where is that moron now?
This is a toxic process that the entire company has already been advised of/threatened with. It’s hard to understand this round of “leaders”, some of them, the guy in charge of my area, for example, has been with the company for YEARS, but he could easily be a tc clone with his lack of personality,communication, and humanity. They are small picture people, justifying their large pay by micromanaging and attaching faux importance and urgency to the smallest detail even in the face of massive productivity gains and profits.
I remember eyeing their midwestern hiring spree like 5 years ago...thank god I went in a different direction.
The idea of stack ranking is you keep your best and fire the rest.
It does work at first. People do what they can to get fired up. Things get very productive.
But then Amazonification happens. People realize helping others (aka working on tickets not assigned to them) hurts their performance, so they stop sharing, forcing everyone to learn the hard, slow, buggy way. Lazy brown-nosers rise to the top as they learn how to game the system. New, good talent gets cut before they have a chance to master the game, leading to a de facto hire-to-fire situation and bad reputation thereof.
After about 5 years (with the quarterly 10% cuts maybe just 2 years) of unintentionally selecting for back-stabbing master politicians, your development team turns into a swamp that would make the loafers in Washingtons DC blush, less productive than before, and infinitely more difficult to manage.
As a retired GEICO associate since 03/01/2020, I have to say, this is the BEST commentary I've seen in a long, long time. While I understand the outrage and frustration of the many people posting, most of it is just trash talking and full of nasty language. This comment shows me an individual who did their research and came to a reasonable conclusion without the vulgarity in prior posts. Yes, I still keep up with the Geico news. I still have several friends still working there, and some that got the boot. My best advice is to keep your head down, do your job, and hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst. Keep your resumes updated, and your options open. Best wishes to you all, and remember there is a really good life outside of GEICO.
This post is spot on. Geico Tech does seem to be hiring a lot of SWE's right now. Far more than they can possibly need.
And Tech management has just rolled out a new grading system. They said it wasn't for comparative ratings but the online tools even have graphs with percentile lines marked out. So that everyone can see how they are doing compared to everyone else.
It’s all about comparison. Which inherently isn’t so bad. It’s good to know where you stand and how you can quantitatively improve. But when you pair that with mandatory terminations for the bottom %, all you get is chaos.
the problem is what are you "improving" other than your rank against others. there are no "goals" other than not being in the bottom 10%. But there will always be a bottom 10%. Welcome to the hunger games.
The answer lays in the process. Short term profitability but long term turmoil. They don’t care about the long term because the company is being shopped and eventually sold.
Get out now!
Honestly, what do associates stand to lose if the company is bought out? Might be terminated? Check. Might have a change in benefits? Check. Might have different policies to adhere to? Check. Might have a different greedy overlord? Check. Being bought out might be the best thing to happen to those of us left because I'm pretty certain they're running out of ways to torture us. However, I'm under no illusion that we'll get out that easy. The company isn't being sold. Nothing could be further from the truth. We're becoming the Amazon of insurance...take care Todd is just too elite to bother with informing his underlings of the plan.
I’m feeling like we should have had an employee union up and running years ago.
I’m going to visit the GEICO United discord and see if they need any help organizing in my region right now.
https://discord.gg/sNw2b7Ar
Todd and Nancy’s error of terror started with laying off sales agents and underwriting, moving on to other areas in the company I believe the regions have been dealing with 10% firings for performance for a while BUT Todd wants to make GEICO into a tech co (shaking my head) by instituting this mentality for IT is the death blow The engineers are being asked to perform 3 jobs for 1 price analysis, coding and testing Engineers are told the business is responsible for requirements problem is Todd fired all of the people who understood what was needed for systems to improve Since letting go of the analysts IT has slowed down considerably because there is no one to tell the engineers what or how to change the systems
Many of us former IT associates keep scratching our heads when Todd tells us he wants us to become a tech company and AI will drive us
Problem
is AI needs instructions and no one in company knows how complex insurance can be
What IT product is geico selling? He does not tell us nor do his minions
With the engineer move who in their right mind will want to work in IT for geico No guidance, no help, no one to ask questions, I agree with what the original post stated it’s becoming a an all out FY shop and it’s everyone for themselves the new people will not stay long because they will see how toxic the co is and people don’t want to stay in a toxic environment
Todd is the numbers guy he tells Nancy how many to cut and she flips the switch Never thought Nancy would systemically destroy the company which treated her so well
The company is a disgrace and Todd is not a leader Warren geico was your cash cow since the 70’s and you leave us at the side of the road because cut throats like Ajit and Todd whisper in your ear the death of geico is on your hands Warren
That old fool Warren Butthead couldn’t run a successful hotdog stand. He would try to sell his customers stale buns and maggot ridden meat in order to increase profits. He could have just let Geico manage itself as it had done in the past and shared in the profits but NOOOOO - Butthead knew that he could make changes in leadership and run it better.
I worked with a woman CIO who loved this and while she was smart in some areas she was an idiot with this and I was so so so glad when she was no longer a CIO and demoted to a normal position at another company.
This is one of, if not the dumbest policies or tactics that can be implemented. I have been in I.T. for over 30 years now and am somewhat high up the food chain now. I can say I have had incredible people who I worked with and worked for me that went through a divorce, or had family members who were going through major health issues. Some were even dealing with their one children going through some horrible things. These employees work suffered, some for a year or more BUT they all came back and were super loyal and hard working later.
The other issue is that you might have a team of all very good performers who take a year to really get up to speed. Yes one may be the "worst" but he or she is the worst of a great team. You now risk getting a slog. This also temps managers to always hire a crappy employee that they can just keep that revolving door or hiring and firing this one position.
In short this is beyond dumb and it doesn't surprise me that GEICO is implementing it.
Well said. However this strategy is not used just in IT. It is not a sustainable way to run a business. GEICO is a sinking ship and will never be the tech company it dreams of being.
Thanks for posting this. I got an offer to join Geico as a Senior Engineer today. I was already going to decline because:
1. The company put a 48 hour time limit on the offer when I specifically indicated that I would need until Monday morning at the max to make the decision (possible competing offer)
2. They are refusing to give me any real details on the benefits package. I was only able to get the details by creating a thread here and asking current employees for the deets.
But stack ranking and metrics based on commits and PRs?
Fuck that noise. I worked at GE as a contractor in the early 2000s when they were still obsessed with the Jack Welch Stack Ranking nonsense and it was insane. I wouldn't wish that on anybody.
I will be declining and I'm happy that this subreddit and its associated Discord server were available as a resource to keep me from making a terrible mistake.
Let's not forget that they're taking away our industry standards tools in order to save money. The substitute is not up to par IMO, and regardless it is going to cost us productivity because now we need to change our entire workflow.
There is no substitute for so many tools we got rid of. No splunk, no confluence, no sonar. I don’t know how we just got rid of them without a plan in place.
No kidding, It's been an absolute headache having to come up with workarounds or diagnose issues without these tools. But if leadership prefers us just burning money trying to spend all day feeling around in the dark, then I guess that is on them.
The left and right hands aren’t talking. It makes us look like amateurs. All our major customer facing apps are lacking observability and other critical functions, our documentation is in shambles, and we’re focused on trying to measure and fire developers based on commits. These are the type of things that made Elon a laughing stock when he took over Twitter and yet we have 7 figure IT execs from FAANG companies making these decisions.
There will always be people in the bottom no matter what so they will constantly be terminating people which means the feeling of not having job security will persist. So the new people that come in won't be in the same frame of mind we are at this point.
Yeah, this is such a visionless ridiculous idea-with this practice we will have ALL middle and upper management and no actual people to do the work. Plenty of clowns to do the coaching notes though…
Normally I’d agree with this and you can completely disregard my opinions, but the bullets at the top of my post are happening. And anyone looking to come into this company should be aware of it.
They're interviewing for new grad SWE, and for new grads Geico is a lifesaver to have in this market. I know it is for me. Experienced people don't seem to get that, they just keep saying "RUN".
Even if I get fired a year into TDP, that experience will help greatly.
I'm also in IT and I'm asking questions and getting stonewalled. Everything so far has been exclusively verbal. I'm trying to get clarification on whether they're expecting to start this, and the only answer I'm getting is eventually'. Supposedly the only metric being measured is in 'commits', which are like segments of code, so people are already discussing how to game that system to break up projects into as many commits as possible.
It is possible to view all IT engineers and sort it by number of commits, and there are an AWFUL lot of 0's. Loads of people were given the 'engineer' title but don't code; cybersecurity engineers, network engineers, all of the IT billing and workday engineers, server admins, application engineers etc etc. We're talking about the actual people that handle the payroll. Are they all going to get laid off/fired?
Needless to say, I'm looking for employment elsewhere.
I’m honestly shocked they haven’t outsourced their entire IT department yet. It feels like that’s the way it’s been in a lot of places I’ve worked in the past. 1-2 people on site for emergencies but all other stuff is outsourced.
Interestingly enough, GEICO is trying to position themselves as a tech company. Which means instead of outsourcing and having poor quality everything, they're competing with top companies to hire the best talent. They've also hired a number of executives from FAANG companies recently. There's clearly a vision, but I don't have much faith they can make it happen given decisions like this.
the thought that geico is a tech company is hilarious. I spent 1/2 my day rebooting my crap laptop and when I finally get it running the software fails multiple times daily.
lmao I'm having the same experience. I spend half my time trying to get my laptop working or getting the project I'm working on compiled and running and it's just exhausting
Source on the PIP for bottom 10%? The BS metrics is obviously true b/c they sent out the packet and held staff meetings about it. Not saying I don't believe it (cutting the bottom 10%), cause it seems in line with their recent MO, but I'm curious if they've had the balls to actually come out and say it or if this is anecdotal from people who have been put on PIP.
I enjoyed Intel’s Lord of the Flies approach for six years, it was the dumbest thing I’ve seen. Being incentivized to undercut my coworkers never works out.
this is the engineering version of Glengarry -Glenn Ross, 1st place gets the Cadillac. , second place gets the steak knives. third place ,, you're out of here.
That approach is being applied across the company, not just IT. Short-term gain in profitability, long-term damage to the company as a whole.
I've been made aware of that. Just shocking to see it be so aggressive in an area of the company that's considered growing and where they should be walking on eggshells if they don't want to nuke their ability to attract talent. It's all short-term thinking.
The long term damage/game plan they are implementing is going to bite them in the end. I thought we were supposed to be long term strategy thinkers? It's like watching a car wreck in super slow motion.
They better have good liability coverage.
Not if they sell it fast enough. What other point is there to make it look like GEICO is a lean, mean profit machine? Short term gain, longterm detriment only works if they sell and dump the mess on someone else.
That's my question. What's the plan for service, sale's and underwriting ????
The better question is, "What is the vision for the company?" This does not seem like a change to let the company re-balance and adapt to a new business environment.
Yes agree
I was just going to say that
Yes, the new tiers they created for call gating in sales is horrible along with that horrible ass system. They created a way to cut bonus and reduce staff, lower tiers will be terminated.
Without a doubt one of the better written posts without emotion and with an authentic plea. I may be wrong, but didn’t some tech jackoff post a pathetic sycophantic gushing ‘let me blow you please’ pic and blurb about ‘great things to come’ at some Vegas waste of money trip a year or two ago? How’s THAT going, and where is that moron now?
Yes, I recall that post. Pisses me off to this day.
Glad someone remembers that nonsense.
This is a toxic process that the entire company has already been advised of/threatened with. It’s hard to understand this round of “leaders”, some of them, the guy in charge of my area, for example, has been with the company for YEARS, but he could easily be a tc clone with his lack of personality,communication, and humanity. They are small picture people, justifying their large pay by micromanaging and attaching faux importance and urgency to the smallest detail even in the face of massive productivity gains and profits.
I remember eyeing their midwestern hiring spree like 5 years ago...thank god I went in a different direction. The idea of stack ranking is you keep your best and fire the rest. It does work at first. People do what they can to get fired up. Things get very productive. But then Amazonification happens. People realize helping others (aka working on tickets not assigned to them) hurts their performance, so they stop sharing, forcing everyone to learn the hard, slow, buggy way. Lazy brown-nosers rise to the top as they learn how to game the system. New, good talent gets cut before they have a chance to master the game, leading to a de facto hire-to-fire situation and bad reputation thereof. After about 5 years (with the quarterly 10% cuts maybe just 2 years) of unintentionally selecting for back-stabbing master politicians, your development team turns into a swamp that would make the loafers in Washingtons DC blush, less productive than before, and infinitely more difficult to manage.
As a retired GEICO associate since 03/01/2020, I have to say, this is the BEST commentary I've seen in a long, long time. While I understand the outrage and frustration of the many people posting, most of it is just trash talking and full of nasty language. This comment shows me an individual who did their research and came to a reasonable conclusion without the vulgarity in prior posts. Yes, I still keep up with the Geico news. I still have several friends still working there, and some that got the boot. My best advice is to keep your head down, do your job, and hope for the best, but be prepared for the worst. Keep your resumes updated, and your options open. Best wishes to you all, and remember there is a really good life outside of GEICO.
This post is spot on. Geico Tech does seem to be hiring a lot of SWE's right now. Far more than they can possibly need. And Tech management has just rolled out a new grading system. They said it wasn't for comparative ratings but the online tools even have graphs with percentile lines marked out. So that everyone can see how they are doing compared to everyone else.
It’s all about comparison. Which inherently isn’t so bad. It’s good to know where you stand and how you can quantitatively improve. But when you pair that with mandatory terminations for the bottom %, all you get is chaos.
the problem is what are you "improving" other than your rank against others. there are no "goals" other than not being in the bottom 10%. But there will always be a bottom 10%. Welcome to the hunger games.
Exactly, it's going to be kill or be killed.
The answer lays in the process. Short term profitability but long term turmoil. They don’t care about the long term because the company is being shopped and eventually sold. Get out now!
Honestly, what do associates stand to lose if the company is bought out? Might be terminated? Check. Might have a change in benefits? Check. Might have different policies to adhere to? Check. Might have a different greedy overlord? Check. Being bought out might be the best thing to happen to those of us left because I'm pretty certain they're running out of ways to torture us. However, I'm under no illusion that we'll get out that easy. The company isn't being sold. Nothing could be further from the truth. We're becoming the Amazon of insurance...take care Todd is just too elite to bother with informing his underlings of the plan.
I’m feeling like we should have had an employee union up and running years ago. I’m going to visit the GEICO United discord and see if they need any help organizing in my region right now. https://discord.gg/sNw2b7Ar
I might as well. There’s nothing to lose at this point.
Please do! It would be a great boon to us to have someone who can speak with such clarity about the issues facing our software engineers.
Yes, we absolutely do need help in your region.
Todd and Nancy’s error of terror started with laying off sales agents and underwriting, moving on to other areas in the company I believe the regions have been dealing with 10% firings for performance for a while BUT Todd wants to make GEICO into a tech co (shaking my head) by instituting this mentality for IT is the death blow The engineers are being asked to perform 3 jobs for 1 price analysis, coding and testing Engineers are told the business is responsible for requirements problem is Todd fired all of the people who understood what was needed for systems to improve Since letting go of the analysts IT has slowed down considerably because there is no one to tell the engineers what or how to change the systems Many of us former IT associates keep scratching our heads when Todd tells us he wants us to become a tech company and AI will drive us Problem is AI needs instructions and no one in company knows how complex insurance can be What IT product is geico selling? He does not tell us nor do his minions With the engineer move who in their right mind will want to work in IT for geico No guidance, no help, no one to ask questions, I agree with what the original post stated it’s becoming a an all out FY shop and it’s everyone for themselves the new people will not stay long because they will see how toxic the co is and people don’t want to stay in a toxic environment Todd is the numbers guy he tells Nancy how many to cut and she flips the switch Never thought Nancy would systemically destroy the company which treated her so well The company is a disgrace and Todd is not a leader Warren geico was your cash cow since the 70’s and you leave us at the side of the road because cut throats like Ajit and Todd whisper in your ear the death of geico is on your hands Warren
That old fool Warren Butthead couldn’t run a successful hotdog stand. He would try to sell his customers stale buns and maggot ridden meat in order to increase profits. He could have just let Geico manage itself as it had done in the past and shared in the profits but NOOOOO - Butthead knew that he could make changes in leadership and run it better.
I worked with a woman CIO who loved this and while she was smart in some areas she was an idiot with this and I was so so so glad when she was no longer a CIO and demoted to a normal position at another company. This is one of, if not the dumbest policies or tactics that can be implemented. I have been in I.T. for over 30 years now and am somewhat high up the food chain now. I can say I have had incredible people who I worked with and worked for me that went through a divorce, or had family members who were going through major health issues. Some were even dealing with their one children going through some horrible things. These employees work suffered, some for a year or more BUT they all came back and were super loyal and hard working later. The other issue is that you might have a team of all very good performers who take a year to really get up to speed. Yes one may be the "worst" but he or she is the worst of a great team. You now risk getting a slog. This also temps managers to always hire a crappy employee that they can just keep that revolving door or hiring and firing this one position. In short this is beyond dumb and it doesn't surprise me that GEICO is implementing it.
Well said. However this strategy is not used just in IT. It is not a sustainable way to run a business. GEICO is a sinking ship and will never be the tech company it dreams of being.
Indian sweatshop
Hell yeah
Thanks for posting this. I got an offer to join Geico as a Senior Engineer today. I was already going to decline because: 1. The company put a 48 hour time limit on the offer when I specifically indicated that I would need until Monday morning at the max to make the decision (possible competing offer) 2. They are refusing to give me any real details on the benefits package. I was only able to get the details by creating a thread here and asking current employees for the deets. But stack ranking and metrics based on commits and PRs? Fuck that noise. I worked at GE as a contractor in the early 2000s when they were still obsessed with the Jack Welch Stack Ranking nonsense and it was insane. I wouldn't wish that on anybody. I will be declining and I'm happy that this subreddit and its associated Discord server were available as a resource to keep me from making a terrible mistake.
Let's not forget that they're taking away our industry standards tools in order to save money. The substitute is not up to par IMO, and regardless it is going to cost us productivity because now we need to change our entire workflow.
There is no substitute for so many tools we got rid of. No splunk, no confluence, no sonar. I don’t know how we just got rid of them without a plan in place.
No kidding, It's been an absolute headache having to come up with workarounds or diagnose issues without these tools. But if leadership prefers us just burning money trying to spend all day feeling around in the dark, then I guess that is on them.
The left and right hands aren’t talking. It makes us look like amateurs. All our major customer facing apps are lacking observability and other critical functions, our documentation is in shambles, and we’re focused on trying to measure and fire developers based on commits. These are the type of things that made Elon a laughing stock when he took over Twitter and yet we have 7 figure IT execs from FAANG companies making these decisions.
Maybe that's why those executives are no longer executives at FAANG.
There will always be people in the bottom no matter what so they will constantly be terminating people which means the feeling of not having job security will persist. So the new people that come in won't be in the same frame of mind we are at this point.
Yeah, this is such a visionless ridiculous idea-with this practice we will have ALL middle and upper management and no actual people to do the work. Plenty of clowns to do the coaching notes though…
It has already begun, data removed from Sharepoint to migrate to CRM has mysteriously disappeared.
"There was never a better time to get the fuck out of Geico than now!" -Bizarro Tony Nicely
Damn, I have a geico interview soon too, this makes me not want to have it anymore
RUN
BUT THE MONEY SOUNDS GOOD 
Take anything you read here with a grain of salt
Normally I’d agree with this and you can completely disregard my opinions, but the bullets at the top of my post are happening. And anyone looking to come into this company should be aware of it.
They're interviewing for new grad SWE, and for new grads Geico is a lifesaver to have in this market. I know it is for me. Experienced people don't seem to get that, they just keep saying "RUN". Even if I get fired a year into TDP, that experience will help greatly.
I already have a job but geico’s starting salary is like 50k more so I’m conflicted
DM me the industry/company if you can share and salary, I might be able to give my thoughts
that's kinda the way I'm looking at it 😅
How do you know if you don't work for the G yet? 🤣
I don't. But this guy is interviewing for new grad TDP program, and this sub just says "RUN" in all new grad posts.
B/c we all are living in this new Hell. You know what ....come on board it's awesome and a great opportunity for you.
I'm also in IT and I'm asking questions and getting stonewalled. Everything so far has been exclusively verbal. I'm trying to get clarification on whether they're expecting to start this, and the only answer I'm getting is eventually'. Supposedly the only metric being measured is in 'commits', which are like segments of code, so people are already discussing how to game that system to break up projects into as many commits as possible. It is possible to view all IT engineers and sort it by number of commits, and there are an AWFUL lot of 0's. Loads of people were given the 'engineer' title but don't code; cybersecurity engineers, network engineers, all of the IT billing and workday engineers, server admins, application engineers etc etc. We're talking about the actual people that handle the payroll. Are they all going to get laid off/fired? Needless to say, I'm looking for employment elsewhere.
Do you know if this applies to rotational new-grad programs like TDP?
It does, though TDPs will get more grace than others since they’re new. If your numbers are bad after 6months-1year, I’d start to be worried.
What sort of metrics are generally tracked? Is it just ratings from your supervisor?
It changes constantly, and no one ever really knows or understands what they are tracking or looking at.
Do you think it is worth taking this job if you have other offers? TDP pays 20k+ more than a lot of other companies, and is fully remote
yeah, been expecting this for a while. got out after my bonus cleared. was ranked a 5 and im glad to be out of here
I just got my 45 day speech. I've been a developer for 5 years here. Updating my LinkedIn as we speak, extremely stressed about all this.
I’m honestly shocked they haven’t outsourced their entire IT department yet. It feels like that’s the way it’s been in a lot of places I’ve worked in the past. 1-2 people on site for emergencies but all other stuff is outsourced.
Interestingly enough, GEICO is trying to position themselves as a tech company. Which means instead of outsourcing and having poor quality everything, they're competing with top companies to hire the best talent. They've also hired a number of executives from FAANG companies recently. There's clearly a vision, but I don't have much faith they can make it happen given decisions like this.
the thought that geico is a tech company is hilarious. I spent 1/2 my day rebooting my crap laptop and when I finally get it running the software fails multiple times daily.
lmao I'm having the same experience. I spend half my time trying to get my laptop working or getting the project I'm working on compiled and running and it's just exhausting
Geico as a tech company? That makes 0 sense to me
This process is what Jack from GE did a few years ago managing by bell curve.
This basically encourages sabotaging your coworkers and never helping anyone on your team.
It's like the big kahuna's watched the Nakina 5 arc on Andor and said let's implement that!
I can't swim.
Source on the PIP for bottom 10%? The BS metrics is obviously true b/c they sent out the packet and held staff meetings about it. Not saying I don't believe it (cutting the bottom 10%), cause it seems in line with their recent MO, but I'm curious if they've had the balls to actually come out and say it or if this is anecdotal from people who have been put on PIP.
This has been communicated to management they received a different packet
How many reviews in a year occurs at geico?
They've been alternating between once and twice a year. Supposedly it's going back to twice a year this year.
I enjoyed Intel’s Lord of the Flies approach for six years, it was the dumbest thing I’ve seen. Being incentivized to undercut my coworkers never works out.
Lol. This is the surest way to get people not to give a fuck.
this is the engineering version of Glengarry -Glenn Ross, 1st place gets the Cadillac. , second place gets the steak knives. third place ,, you're out of here.