-- Clueless middle management: There are far too many middle managers with no experience with the teams they're managing, making it difficult for individual contributors to make any difference or own anything.
-- Lots of politics: Making needed improvements will take at least a year and most of that will be trying to get answers and approvals. There are a lot of plans made leaving little time to get the work done. It takes half the year to make the plan so you only have half a year to execute.
-- Management turnover: Several people have had 5+ managers in the last 5 years. When review time comes, this means you never get a full review because each time your manager hasn't had enough time with you. Which equates to very little chances of promotions or raises.
--Management ego: Most manager I know have an ego that gets in the way of necessary cross-team collaboration and pressure to get everything done right now with no space to make sure you're doing things right. They want the credit to themselves and will sacrifice quality to get it.
-- Sexism: If you are a woman, you will have to work at least twice as hard to prove yourself. You will have less options to advance your career and you may have to deal with sexist comments.
All of this is bad news, especially for individual contributors. Unless you're ok with not advancing your career and nothing to add to your resume in exchange for some benefits and work/life balance flexibility.
