About SmartWays Logistics
To Whom It May Concern,
This letter is offered as personal opinion and caution for software engineers, developers, or IT professionals evaluating an opportunity with SmartWays Logistics. SmartWays Logistics is a medical logistics company located in Australia and New Zealand. While the company is headquartered in Australia/NZD, the development team operates out of Bixby, Oklahoma. The team works from a coworking space, where the owner of that coworking space also serves as the Director of Software Engineering at SmartWays. This arrangement raises concerns about professionalism, accountability, and conflict of interest, as developers are effectively working in a space where their manager also controls the working environment. While the environment is not necessarily fraudulent, the fact that this manager publicly identifies himself as the CEO of the coworking space rather than listing his role as Director of Software Engineering at SmartWays raises questions about tax structuring and transparency.
Development Team Structure
The development team itself consists of:
- The Director of Software Engineering (who is also the coworking space owner).
- A senior developer who appears to take advantage of the Director's inexperience.
- Four junior developers who are often scared, confused, and frustrated, and remain silent largely out of fear of losing their income.
- A revolving door of senior developers, creating instability and making it difficult to establish continuity or technical leadership.
Major Concerns
Other major concerns include:
- Toxic Management Dynamics: Messaging at all hours about issues unrelated to your work; concerns met with dismissal or gaslighting.
- Lack of Respect for Talent: Heavy reliance on automation tools instead of investing in engineers; high churn.
- Over-Bloated Management for a "Forever-Startup": CIO, CTO, multiple PMs, and a Director of Engineering without strategic clarity.
- Poor Technical Foundation: A platform weighed down by technical debt with features trailing user needs.
- Exploitative Expectations: Work across large time-zone gaps (up to ~18 hours) with persistent availability pressure.
- Lack of Core Process: Despite existing since 2004 and investing heavily in project management tools, the company lacks the core operational processes one would expect of a mature organization. There are no consistent workflows, no defined QA standards, and no reliable incident postmortem practices. Critical knowledge often lives in ad hoc chat messages rather than in documented procedures.
- No Health Insurance: Ironic for a medical logistics company, employees are not offered basic health coverage.
- Offshore Payments: Developers are paid only once per month, and payments are routed through an offshore bank account, raising further concerns about financial stability and transparency.
Final Warning
If you are considering employment or contract work with SmartWays Logistics, weigh these concerns carefully. Many organizations value craft, respect boundaries, and invest in growth. In our opinion, SmartWays Logistics does not currently demonstrate those qualities.