So far I have been lucky in my professional life. I have never had any conflicts with my employers and for the most part maintained good rapport with coworkers and managers alike. Alas, my luck has finally run out.

Long story short, I left Composable Foundation in October and I am still waiting for my final paycheck. TL;DR: If you are doing business with them make sure you are paid in advance.

The issues started around June when my invoices stopped getting paid. I did not press the issue immediately and only started asking about it on my last month. I had been reassured that all remaining payments would be made on last day of my contract.

They were not.

I started nagging people some more about the payments and I kept getting reassured that the transfers were coming. While money had been trickling in, the deadlines and amounts kept shifting. Was that some kind of delay tactic? But I do not understand what the delay could possibly achieve.

Omar Zaki, Composable’s CEO who is better known online as 0xbrainjar, claimed that ‘he’ll get [the final transfer] done by Friday’. When that did not happen, he claimed that ‘it’ll be done by the time [I] wake up Saturday.’ And yes, you have guessed it, that did not happen either. I waited till Saturday noon New York time to message him about it and only then transfer happened. Alas, rather than for full amount, it was less than half of the invoice value.

At this point I gave up. If the remaining amount ever arrives I will update this post, but I consider the money lost.

The saddest part is that I am working with University of Lisbon on a handful research projects which started as collaboration between Composable and the university. With my recent experience with Composable I worry about future of that research. Though I have single-handled maintained that collaboration going for last few months so hopefully we can finish what we have started even without Composable’s involvement.