Toxic
I worked at Synertial for over two years and I can safely say that it is a toxic company that you should neither be working for nor dealing with as a customer.
Synertial, and all of its offshoots and side-projects (including MIDI3D, Guitarwaze, Motion Maker, and Animalive) have one major problem in common: Ali Kord, the man that runs these companies. In my time at Synertial I witnessed and/or experienced some of the most misogynistic, racist, antisemitic, inappropriate, unprofessional behaviour that I have ever seen in my career so far. It is a fundamentally broken environment because it is run by someone that literally does not care about the wellbeing of his employees.
I am Jewish. I make no effort to hide this fact - it is a part of my identity that I am proud of. Even though he was aware of this fact, he would make borderline antisemitic comments on a semi-regular basis. One time he said that his wife and daughter "are always bickering, just like a Jewish family", for instance. On one occasion however he told me that his Electrical Engineer, who is based in the states, "isn't a practicing Jew, but he has some Jewish tendencies". When I asked him what he meant by this he said that when he gives him work to do he "scurries his money away" and prioritises other freelance work. When I later confronted him about this he said he was offended that I called his comment racist, and that he actually "covets that trait" about Jews. He went on to say that this is why he has Jewish friends and colleagues, so that he can learn to save money.
This is, for hopefully obvious reasons, profoundly antisemitic. I have never experienced anything like this level of direct bigotry in my life, and to be honest I'm still reeling from the shock of it.
I have also been physically struck by this person. One time he thought he "caught" me on social media, and instead of using his words decided to hit me on the shoulder. I went home after this as I no longer felt safe in the office.
The next day he demanded I come into the office to have a meeting about it. Throughout this meeting he continuously downplayed his actions: when I said I left because I felt unsafe he laughed at me and mockingly said “come on”, when I said that he can’t hit his employees he said “you’re not my employee, I’m not your boss, we’re all just team members”. He said that he had lunch with his lawyer who explained that he’s not allowed to hit his employees, which I could have told him for free. He also proposed as a solution that next time he would “bang on a table” instead of striking me, further evidencing the fact that he is unable to communicate through anything other than aggression and intimidation.
Beyond being abusive, he is simply a terrible businessman, because he is incapable of sticking to one idea. You will never be on one project long enough to see it through to the end - he refuses to do any market research and sees the actually well-informed advice of his employees as a threat. This is an ego project first and foremost - what is good for the product is, as a rule, always secondary to what is personally satisfying to the man in charge. This results in an environment where you constantly feel misapplied, like your talent is wasted and you'll never have anything to show for it, like you're being insubordinate by working for the good of the project. It is frankly depressing. And, more importantly, it's a terrible way to run a business - this is reflected in the fact that none of these half-baked ideas ever go anywhere or ever make any money whatsoever.
In the interest of fairness I will say that he was always really good about working around mine and my colleagues' university schedules. This was genuinely a great part of the job and was one of the reasons I was so excited about it when I first started. But it feels like these better aspects were just there to launder the abusive aspects. The truth is: this man does not deserve you. Direct your energy towards finding a job where you are respected, valued, and safe instead.