Senior managers (team leads) are by far the single worse thing about working in Shopee, all other cons pale in comparison. These managers have the autonomy to set their own culture within their team.
In most companies, there are bad managers but they are usually kept in check by HR from becoming too extreme. However at Shopee, HR has no oversight or visibility on what goes on within the teams, they are simply too busy with recruiting. Also, you cannot complain to HR about your manager because there is so much political BS going on, there's a chance your complaint will be traced back to you in which case your manager will show you the door.
1. Work life balance
- E-commerce is a 24/7, 365 days business, if you’re in product/ tech etc. you may be called at any time, even while you’re on holiday
- Not responding in group chats within ~30mins is frowned upon, they will escalate to your manager and you will get scolded. Thus you end up checking your phone every 10mins or so (over weekend, outings with friends etc) to make sure the on-going group chats do not involve you
- Some managers are known to "test" new employees by sending them tasks on weekends to determine how long it takes for them to respond. Managers will use these stupid tests to form an opinion of how “hard working” they are
2. Micromanagement
- Shopee managers are notorious for being micromanagers. I believe this culture is largely driven top down from the C-suite leaders who tend to see micromanagement positively as "having paying attention to detail"
3. Chinese culture/ language
- If you can’t speak Chinese, don’t bother joining.
- CEO has publicly said to focus hiring on PRCs and not Singaporeans as Singaporeans tend to be ‘lazier’ i.e. complain more about work-life balance etc, which I guess is kind of true since no such thing exists in China
- Taking long leave i.e. >5days is frowned upon. The attitude is ‘you should feel grateful you have a job here’. My managers complained about me to my peers behind my back while i was on leave for 8 days (I was getting married in another country)
- If you’re in tech, most meetings are conducted in Chinese, PRDs are in Chinese, most dev's english ability range from poor to none at all
4. Unprofessional team leads/ managers
- Some managers even publicly scolded their team members for: leaving office on time (regardless of whether work is completed)
- Feedback is never direct, it's always done behind people’s back or you get scolded on the office floor in front of everyone to “send a message” to others
Team leads have little experience leading people
Team leads are mostly appointed by being in “the right place at the right time” ~3 years ago when Shopee was a small start up, they survive by expertly managing the office politics
Team leads do not have sufficient experience to understand the complexity of your task, frankly they don’t care until something is delayed or there is an issue. Then they will interrogate you until they can find something to scold you for
Team leads do not have sufficient experience to provide meaningful mentorship to their direct reports. Some leads have 10+ direct reports, they simply don't have the time either
