Bad engineering. Seniority is the only thing that matters for advancement. I've seen jr engineers picking up the slack for their lvl 3 or 4 peers. It makes jrs very salty to make half of their incompetent peers and the bad seniors very with no motivation to improve. Until the mass layoffs the past few years, it seemed nobody was let go for being bad at their job. They would always figure something out or rotate you to another dept. Bose engineering was basically one big works program. Good if you were bad, terrible if you were competent.
Non-sensical decisions seemed to be everywhere, with no repurcussions for the idea's originators. IE not knowing how to evaluate good talent, leading to not having engineers on hand to execute pretty straightforward apps and services, hiring contractors for 700k a head to do the work, then halting all work and firing contractors, as the budget predictably runs out.
The saddest thing is that a lot of decent people loved the company and tried to do everything in their power to keep the legacy alive. I knew of engineers and managers who took a lot of flack for pushing back against absolutely non-sensical decisions. People slowly trickled out after realizing it was a futile effort until eventually there was nobody left to keep the torrent of bad decisions back.
