A Software Developer quits his job at Minet Kenya over toxic work environment - Exposes his toxic boss who nearly led him to depression

Wednesday, July 30, 2025 - A disgruntled former staff at Minet Kenya has narrated his awful experience at the leading insurance firm.

He was forced to quit his job over toxic working environment.

Read….

Choosing to work for a corporate that neither understands nor values software developers can drain the life out of your career, mental health, and even your sense of self. My friend Garry (not his real name) discovered this the hard way after just three months at Minet Kenya.

In an exclusive email, Garry detailed his disgruntlement and the toxic reality he faced working under a boss who neither understood the craft of software development nor the human beings behind the code.

If you are reading this email from me, then it is because I left Minet without saying goodbye, and it was not on good terms that I had to leave. I had to leave because I prioritize my mental health above everything else. I have been pretending to be okay since about three months ago when I joined as a Software Developer. There were signs of red flags from the onset, but poor me, I chose to ignore them and confused them for the red theme that the company uses in its emblem.

Let me tell you, Maina, working for Minet could have taken a toll on me had I not been into running. Those things helped me to suppress the toxicity of my boss, Mr. David M, the Manager of ICT and Digitalisation. This guy is the true embodiment of an African Indian boss. He thinks he is a leader, but it turns out he is just a manager because he manages and manages down to the lowest point he can get into, even if it’s emailing, writing an SMS, sending a WhatsApp text, and still calling you to ask the same thing he just texted elsewhere. Mind you, you are in a project group with him where he has probably asked for the same thing again.

Let me go back to before joining the company. HR kept postponing the interviews four times under unclear circumstances, and I was on the brink of ignoring them when the interview finally happened. After about 30 minutes of a mixture of personal, HR, and technical-related questions, I received a call later from HR herself informing me of the success of the interview. I was happy to secure the role of Flutter app developer.

But it would be almost a month later when I would get another call, which turned out to be inappropriate in many ways. All along, I was expecting an offer letter, but now HR was calling to negotiate the salary expectation with me. I had given my salary expectations as 200k because that was where I was looking to be after my previous job, where I was paid slightly below that. To be honest, Jayne W, you were very arrogant to give me one hour to get back to you on my salary expectation. You were offering me a mere 80k, and in your words, you just said, “It’s a growth opportunity.” You also said I would be getting a lot of benefits in medical-related areas and twice my salary every end year. All that was not really convincing to me at all because you also added that I didn’t have many options since I was unemployed. Well, I wasn’t employed, but I wasn’t struggling.

I had to talk to two of my friends about it, and they told me I could take up the opportunity, hoping things would get better over time and that maybe it wouldn’t be a lot of work. In the midst of all that, you said, “Please consider the growth opportunity we are offering.” Unfortunately, in my career, there was a lot I was already doing, and the growth that mattered to me was financial, which was the reason I applied for the role.

Now, when I was finally called to come for the offer letter, which I had all along expected to receive via email, I realized there was more paperwork to be done. I was required to provide physical documents like NSSF, KRA PIN, SHA, ID, Bank ATM, academic qualifications, and passport photos. I also had to read a policy pamphlet as big as an encyclopedia. Plus, the number of documents I had to sign was so many that I had to go for an early lunch just to get the energy to go through it all.

When I was introduced to my department, I was quick to learn that I would not be writing mobile apps but rather web apps, specifically with PHP. So, I went back and had my offer letter edited so that the title was changed from Android Developer to Software Developer.

I had no problem adjusting because there was already a promising mobile developer, and being who I am, I just switched to a role I was in almost five years ago. I finally got access to the source code and was taken through the system I was to work on. The codebase had a poor DX (Developer Experience), and I couldn’t help but wonder what life was like for the guy I was replacing. Later, I was given an office landline and would be giving support directly to the users of the system. I was working in the prod server almost immediately. It felt like working in a coal mine or a steel factory, imagining there was no test environment or staging for that matter. I even protested to my supervisor, who escalated it to David, and we had a crisis meeting. I also brought up the issue of salary expectations and how disappointed I was. I was doing more work than what my salary was worth. You see, 80k is just an entry-level salary.

After tax and deductions, it’s like 58k. Take out tithes if you go to church like me, minus 12k for rent, minus 3k for WiFi, minus 10k for food, minus chama membership, minus the loan I am paying for. Should I tell you I pay black tax? This means working at Minet makes me poorer and poorer because I end up living from pay-check to pay-check. Now, if you add the toxic boss I have, who not only micromanages me but also assigns two PMs to supervise me, which ends up being nested micromanagement, where do you think this ends?

David, I have had several meetings in your office, which now feels like a staff room. I have walked to your office more than I do to the teapot, toilet, or any other place while at Minet. So many status updates and stand-up meetings just interrupt my thought process. For the record, the 3 days you were not in the office, I worked better, just like when there were maandamanos and we worked from home. You told me that you can barely do anything from home, which, to me, I can’t relate to. I work best with minimal or no interruptions.

By the way, you said your background is in networking, so that means you don’t understand how much effort it takes to write working code, ship features, or fix bugs quickly. There was this day we were to have a demo with the CEO and other Directors while you were in another meeting in Westlands. You called my PM every minute for three hours. You wanted the demo to be flawless, yet it ended up worse. As much as I said I can put up with pressure during the interview, I don’t think I signed up for micromanagement. Sorry nested micromanagement!

Because of your numerous calls that showed you were in panic mode, I ended up in panic mode too. Even the commands I was writing for the Laravel app in the terminal ended up in reverse order. All of sudden my .env was dysfunctional and I rushed to hardcode, thereby making things even worse, and you were there later wondering, “It was working three days ago on Monday, why not today?” Yes, it even worked right after the meeting because the panic mode was reset to zero.

You are such a toxic boss, yet you don’t see it. You talk all the time and follow up on everyone so much that sometimes, when I see you in the corridors, I feel like you might ask me for updates because when you see someone pass by your office, you never hesitate to call them in for “a quick status update.” You told me that when my predecessor left and the CEO asked you why he left, you said it was because Minet doesn’t appreciate its developers well. While that is partly true, I wonder why you didn’t tell the CEO that you are part of the problem that such an experienced developer left. Why couldn’t you say you were toxic to him and even to his predecessors?

By the way, our mobile developer has been falling sick for some days. Did you care to find out why he sometimes falls sick? There are people who can’t go on leave because you are not satisfied with their work or because Garry’s project is not live yet. You used the excuse of some feature not working to deny someone leave. I fixed the issue hoping the guy could get some relief, but you told him my project needed training and that he would need to be there. Basically, one thing keeps leading to another, and that means my friend might never go on leave. If that is someone else, what about me on probation?

Now yesterday, you accused me of coming late to work. 9:30 am is not late, to begin with. Did you care to know that I sometimes work late into the night and early in the morning to fix bugs and features? I told you that sometimes I work at home after supper and sometimes in the morning when I wake up. The reason is, sometimes in the office, with the constant interruptions, my thought process is messed up from impromptu HR phone calls (I wonder why they can’t use email, which is less disruptive) and your stand-up meetings that pop up out of nowhere. Per week, I sometimes work for about 55 hours, which is twice the hours in the office. When I told you I sometimes run 10 km in the morning, you started talking about work-life balance. It was absurd how you said that.

Work-life balance refers to the equilibrium between professional and personal life, where individuals can effectively manage their work responsibilities while also enjoying a fulfilling personal life. But to you, it meant one is supposed to reduce their personal time and maximize work, even if it means overworking themselves.

I refuse to work in a toxic workspace because I was there five years ago, and I almost committed suicide. One thing I was right about was not posting online that I work here because I was not sure how long I would last here. But above all, I regret coming here. Thank God my running sport is way more cheaper than therapy, which you yourself go to silently.

Corporate environments that neither understand nor respect software development will suffocate developers with micromanagement, underpayment, and meaningless “growth opportunity” rhetoric. Garry’s story is a reminder that no pay-check is worth your mental health, and that your well-being and dignity are more important than any title on LinkedIn.

If you see the red flags early, don’t confuse them with the company’s color theme. Walk away. It’s better to be unemployed and mentally safe than to trade your sanity for a toxic pay-check.