"At about that time I decided to keep my mouth shut, after all that is what they wanted, someone who would keep quiet."
Just came to this realization myself last week. Doesn't matter if they're forcing iOS UX on to Android UX, sometimes they just don't to hear it. Promises of 'We welcome fresh and new perspectives.' or 'We want someone who isn't afraid to make comments and suggestions.' are usually warning signs during the interview. I even ask fellow team members how did some of the less than optimal choices manage to get passed through, they'd just smile and whisper that how things are done – management doesn't want expertise, they just want soldiers.
Poor management team can really kill team morale, but try your best to make the best of it while you're still there. Chat up and learn from people from different departments, especially if you are interest in doing your own startup. There's so much to learn other than just design and coding. So so much!
I wouldn't necessarily say that promises of "We welcome fresh and new perspectives...isn't afraid to make comments..." is a warning sign. As a founder I truly try to listen to our employee's thought and ideas and if they make sense, we implement them. In fact we just started an internship program where the interns pitch us a feature/idea for our site and if we approve they implement that live on our site.
In the end it's just like anything in this world, there are alot of talkers, that say the right things but don't mean them, and then there are doers, people that follow through on their words with actions. The difficulty is differentiating between the 2...
Just came to this realization myself last week. Doesn't matter if they're forcing iOS UX on to Android UX, sometimes they just don't to hear it. Promises of 'We welcome fresh and new perspectives.' or 'We want someone who isn't afraid to make comments and suggestions.' are usually warning signs during the interview. I even ask fellow team members how did some of the less than optimal choices manage to get passed through, they'd just smile and whisper that how things are done – management doesn't want expertise, they just want soldiers.
Poor management team can really kill team morale, but try your best to make the best of it while you're still there. Chat up and learn from people from different departments, especially if you are interest in doing your own startup. There's so much to learn other than just design and coding. So so much!