Let me tell you my story about the scum company Bluethumb.com.au and its thieves gang: CTO Alex Timofeev, CEO Edward Hartley, and CFO Lesley-Anne Schwab.

From May 31, 2023, to May 31, 2024, I was employed as a Remote Ruby on Rails Developer for an Australian company named Bluethumb.com.au. It's one of the largest online art shops in Australia. I signed a full-time remote employment contract, with a verbal agreement to discuss a salary raise after one year.

Working there wasn’t entirely bad. The project was messy, using a lot of different technologies. The CTO, a Russian guy named Alex Timofeev (which highest technical reference for ruby on rails was that he was door man on one of ruby conferences), was clearly unqualified for his role. He didn’t know how to manage the job properly, but thanks to his personal relationship with CEO Edward Hartley, he remained in position. What's notable is that Alex brought in a few people he had worked with at previous companies. Given the current state of the IT job market, those people were loyal to him—not because of his leadership, but because they were grateful for the job. They followed his lead, even though they knew he wasn’t doing a good job.

I did my tasks properly. When I didn’t know something, I asked questions or requested clarification. I have no issue admitting I need to learn. Sometimes I got help, sometimes I didn’t—probably due to the toxic atmosphere. Team members who had been there for years would show off on calls but wouldn’t share information in direct communication, or they’d give partial answers to protect their positions. Low behavior.

The most frustrating part was code reviews. Timofeev fostered a toxic environment around them, mainly due to his own lack of knowledge. Reviews were filled with pointless nitpicking—suggesting variable name changes or moving code between files. It felt like their way of generating email notifications to look productive. One person would suggest this, another that—it was infuriating. All five of my colleagues had far less experience than me. At first, I respected their feedback because I was new and used to adapting quickly as a contractor. But this was different. "Telling this because site has more important problems with payments and other critical parts which showing everyday by support but its ignored because of ignorance of solving those issues". For code reviewers was more important should I name variable with one or two words, or order of words.

On one of my final tasks, I had to rewrite the same code five times in 10 days because of one colleague’s contradictory feedback. Eventually, he admitted that he finally understood why my original solution was pretty ok!

After months of raising concerns about these inefficient and time-wasting reviews, I gave up and just followed orders. I became part of the same nonsense.

Later on, I noticed that many of my completed tasks were never merged into the main branch. Some were never even approved. Often, tasks were poorly described, and I had to wait weeks for clarification. Everything was tracked in Linear, with clear dates and history—anyone could easily see who was productive and who wasn’t.

On May 30, 2024, I had my regular one-on-one call with Timofeev. Being the last workday of the year, I expected us to talk about the promised salary increase. Instead, he opened with: “You’ve been underperforming.” I was shocked—I had never received any prior indication of this. In fact, I had recently helped Project Manager Alex Gibson with Redash and BigQuery tasks, and he had praised my contributions.

I realized Timofeev was trying to scare me so I wouldn’t ask for a raise—especially since he had been bragging about saving the company millions. I told him to back up his claims with facts. Let’s check Linear, GitHub, email threads—any tool. He refused, saying he wouldn’t provide any proof and I had to simply accept his judgment.

Of course, I didn’t accept that. I told him if he was going to lie and falsely accuse me, I didn’t want to work for such a company—but everything must follow the contract. He said he need few days and he’d check with the CEO and get back to me. We even had a team call afterward where he asked me to finish a task like nothing had happened.

I worked on May 30 and 31. Then in the afternoon of the 31st, he messaged me suggesting I “finish up” my work that day. I reiterated: if they insisted on lies and false accusations, fine—but we would follow the terms of the contract.

I then emailed the CEO, CFO, and PM, informing them about the situation. The CEO, Edward Hartley, replied saying we’d talk the following Monday (June 3).

But that Friday evening—after I sent the email—I was kicked out of GitHub and Linear, and by the weekend, Slack access was gone too.

I was shocked. This had never happened to me before. I thought on Monday, Hartley would call me and set things right. But he postponed the meeting to Wednesday. During the call, he asked me what happened. I explained everything. He said he would consult with management. The next day, I got an email from Hartley wishing me good luck and offering to pay less than half of what I was owed. I rejected it.

They owed me:

A week later, CFO Lesley-Anne Schwab was included in the thread. Her tone was threatening and manipulative. She claimed I was only entitled to 1/4 of the money because I didn’t “complete my notice period” and said I should return the company laptop because I didn’t work a full year—another lie.

She had the full chronology but chose to ignore the facts. Fortunately, I had screenshots showing I worked until May 31.

I hired a legal team from Australia. They reviewed everything and said it was a clear case of unlawful termination, so we filed a complaint with the Fair Work Commission, just before the 21-day deadline.

We had an online hearing, and then more lies followed. CEO Edward Hartley claimed:

All false. The contract clearly stated I was a full-time employee. It specified annual leave, computer reimbursement, and notice period—all ignored by Bluethumb.

They operated like a gang, piling lie upon lie.

The Commission’s findings:

They ignored all my documented evidence.

Even worse, they admitted that Bluethumb owes me money—for salary, leave, computer, and notice period—but that was outside the scope of this case. I’d need to start another case.

Later, CEO Hartley again tried to blackmail me, offering only 1/4 of what they owed. I rejected it.

Eventually, I received a payment for half the amount. But I still have 5 years under Australian law to pursue the rest + damage—and I will soon.

For now, I want the world to know what kind of people Edward Hartley, Lesley-Anne Schwab, and Alexander Timofeev really are.

Decision:
Fair Work Act 2009
s.365 - Application to deal with contraventions involving dismissal
Mr Nezir Zahirovic
v
Bluethumb Pty Ltd
(C2024/4156)

https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/decisionssigned/pdf/2024fwc2430.pdf

Order:

https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/awardsandorders/pdf/pr779027.pdf