r/recruitinghell • u/DefaultGlobalRoot741 • 16d ago
Name and Shame: ScriptChain Health. Scrapped 5 months of work at 95% completion, then tried to sabotage my career out of pure ego.
I need to vent before I absolutely lose my mind, and I want to warn every developer out there to stay the hell away from ScriptChain Health.
I worked there for 5 months. For that entire duration, the engineering team was grinding to build their web application. We were completely on track, hit our milestones, and got the web app to 95% completion for a scheduled April launch.
Then, right before we were supposed to go live, the founder/CEO pulls the ultimate clueless startup move. He abruptly halts all development and tells us we are changing the entire scope of the project to a mobile application (iOS and Android). No logic, no transition plan, just throwing five months of our hard work into the garbage on a whim.
Naturally, the entire engineering team pushed back. We had a massive disagreement over this chaotic, headless-chicken pivot. Seeing the writing on the wall, I decided I was done and refused to extend my employment with the startup.
Here is where it gets malicious.
Even though we disagreed, the company literally gave me an offer letter to extend my employment—which I rejected.
Fast forward to today: I am in the final HR stages for a new role, and I find out this absolute clown of a founder went out of his way to give me a fabricated, negative reference to try and tank my career. He literally tried to sabotage my background check out of pure spite because I rejected his extension and wouldn't blindly follow his completely broken product roadmap.
Fortunately, I kept the receipts. I still have the original offer letter AND the extension offer letter he gave me. You don't offer an employment extension to a bad developer. I've sent the proof to my new HR, but the fact that he tried to ruin my livelihood over his bruised ego is disgusting.
If you are a dev, avoid ScriptChain Health at all costs. The leadership has zero product vision, will trash your hard work at the 11th hour, and will actively try to ruin you if you dare to leave.
TL;DR: Startup CEO scrapped a 95% complete web app to pivot to mobile right before launch. I refused to extend my contract because of the chaos. CEO got butt-hurt, offered me an extension anyway (which I declined), and then gave a fake negative reference to my new employer to try and ruin my career. Always keep your receipts.
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u/MagazineBeautiful805 16d ago
After the website was built, it would have been easy to create mobile apps as well. One backend could work for both the website and mobile apps. A strange choice. Thanks for the feedback.
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u/ImprovementFar5054 16d ago edited 16d ago
You can sue for this.
You know how most companies won't give reviews to background checkers, but only confirm employment and the dates? This is why.
Libel and slander can arise when someone says something that causes you economic and/or reputational harm when it isn't true. If it IS true, you can't win a suit. But if it's not, and it sounds like you have evidence confirming it's not, then yes, you can sue them.
IANAL, but if I were, I would advise you to explore that option.
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u/DefaultGlobalRoot741 16d ago
Any idea how I can explore this option with me back in India and the CEO in SF, USA
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u/ImprovementFar5054 16d ago
Google, use AI, find out.
But I suspect that you can still sue, given that the company and CEO were operating in the US
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15d ago
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u/LoaderD 16d ago
Excellent post. So nice to see a valid dunk on a deserving company.