td;dr doesn't matter if you are a junior or senior engineer or team lead there is no reason to join Lalamove tech team anymore. See below for details.
Timeline and tech
The company had tech troubles from early on, lack of technical experience and expertise in higher management, no technical co-founder, early tech hires were random and not qualified, authoritarian decision making style and culture which reduce engineers to coders with no tech oversight of solutions and timelines. This created a bad foundation. At the same time a separate tech team was set in mainland China for separate solution for local market.
Due to consequences of bad tech foundation and a push for a good process from international workforce in Hong Kong office changes were made. Old tech management sidelined, but not fully. Changes were made, but with mistakes and often slow for many reasons.
Later management decided to "merge" tech teams in HK and China, with CTO from China. It actually means a replacement of HK solutions with Chinese + making international support for it. The approach and execution was very under-planned.
Should you join?
All said doesn't mean there was no reason to join the company.
- Early joiners enjoyed stock options in the company loved by investors
- Transformation stage joiners got experience. They could learn software development process together with the company, advance career, do architecture revamps and rewrites instead of working in a feature factory
But right now the job quality is bad, salaries are low, salary adjustments are low, low number of annual leave days, health insurance is poor, no stock options, and even if they would be given, the return is just not interesting.
There are plenty of options in HK for either startups with a room to grow and learn and stock options, or established companies with proper process, salaries, vacations, and health insurance.
