Camunda was once a standout company with a collaborative, low-ego culture, full of people genuinely excited to build something meaningful. Unfortunately, that version of Camunda has become harder and harder to recognize.
I’m sharing this review to bring transparency to what many employees have been experiencing, in hopes it helps both future candidates and current colleagues who may be feeling the same but don’t feel safe speaking up as trust has been systematically eroded away. I also hope it leads to meaningful change, though if the last six months are any indication, it may unfortunately fall on deaf ears.
Camunda continues to generate bold ideas, but struggles deeply with execution. Strategy shifts frequently - not in a way that suggests thoughtful evolution, but more like scrambling to deploy something that was thought up over a weekend. Critical product releases are also delayed, and instead of leading the category, it feels like you’re constantly playing catchup with technology.
Cross-functional collaboration has also become increasingly difficult and to be honest slowly trended towards being non-existent. Much of that stems from the influence of a recently promoted executive who has introduced a toxic dynamic across teams. Their leadership style is marked by emotional volatility, behind-the-scenes undermining, and retaliatory behavior which has been discussed in other reviews for good reason. It has created a culture of fear and performative alignment, where people spend more time managing optics than solving problems. When one person in a senior role causes this much damage and nothing changes, it sends a clear message about what behavior is tolerated.
Trust across functions is eroding, and morale has taken a hit. It’s harder to do good work when motivations aren’t clear, and when the ability to innovate is stifled. There are still great people at Camunda but more and more of them are leaving or disengaging while the company has chosen to turn a blind eye, going as far as removing all notifications on when one of your colleagues has left the business.
There’s also growing uncertainty about the company’s long-term focus. Increasingly, it feels like short-term positioning and stakeholder optics are taking precedence over the original mission.