Across the board, management at all levels struggles to understand and alleviate the challenges encountered by the firm. At best, direction from the mid-level and beyond is blithely ignorant and, at worst, somewhat hostile to proper fostering and sharing of tech resources. There is a distinct lack of project management and managers, and with it, a lack of direction. Resources and departments are fragmented, and stymies many projects. While there are certainly efforts to improve, there is entrenched "if it works for now, its works" culture in many aspects. This results in patchwork and stop-gap solutions, processes, and tech firm-wide. I would say many talented employees end up working alone, or close to alone on their projects, without support, and a lot of duplicate work ends up being done.
The company struggles to retain talent, and it was disheartening to see talented coworkers often leave. Unnecessary criticism and scrutiny, often stemming from ignorance, was hidden behind a guise of "free speech" and "meritocratic culture", though it often came from places and positions where that sort of speech could not be spoken back.
Compensation and culture heavily weights tenure over performance; including considering the context and circumstances performance is achieved. Should tenure be achieved, however, compensation was beyond generous.
Finally, when I resigned, my release included the only non-disparagement clause many of my friends and I have ever encountered. I believe this type of clause was not uncommon upon employee exits. While it is certainly not entirely outrageous or unheard of, the firm clearly applies its habit of half-hearted band-aids all the way to the end. I suppose that is the single aspect in which the company shows proper commitment. You can guess whether I accepted such terms.
Also diversity at the firm was pretty bad, even for finance.
