Spire tends to be unable to retain some of the most technically talented and impactful people. Their compensation structure heavily relies on stock grants that are basically worthless at the moment, and they do not give raises or promotions to anyone outside high-level management (that I have witnessed in 4 yrs). They just let people leave. This leads to large parts of the system going un-owned until they need to be changed or supported, at which point, they are thrown on to the nearest technically-adjacent team.
Contracts are signed without consulting engineering. This leads to massive friction between e-staff and engineering, and costs the company dearly in some cases.
Sometimes people in higher level engineering positions pretend to understand the underlying systems more than they do. This is likely because things change so quickly to meet business needs, there is an inherent lack of understanding, but there is also a lack of trust when they are given suggestions by staff.
There is a huge amount of tech debt, because the focus is always on the next business need. Not the kind of tech debt that builds an ivory tower when completed - the kind that makes a satellite inoperable for days/weeks when it happens.
