Brain drain (See all of the reasons below for why):
Anyone talented and not from Kansas leaves pretty quickly. This leaves the people in charge as just the ones who stuck it out the longest and not actually the ones who are the best at what they do. The level 1 and 2s I work with are almost always more talented and engaging to work with than the senior and director levels I work with.
Low pay and insultingly low raises:
Even if you are a high performer your yearly pay raise will be below inflation. If you are an average performer you can expect 1-2%. This is all linked to a ridiculously unnuanced performance evaluation system.
You have to live in Kansas:
Not the worst place to live, but there is absolutely nothing to do here and you are not even within drivable distance of much, barring an extended weekend trip. Flights in and out are expensive so if you want to leave expect to spend minimum $400 anywhere. Good luck if you are young and single. KC is nowhere near the upcoming and trendy city they all want you to think it is and crime is pretty bad. HQ is also an hour outside the city with rush hour traffic anyways.
Endless middle management with no ownership but limitless input:
Too many middle managers who are solely in those positions due to time at the company and not for their competence. Because of this they all get to have some sort of opinion on everything regardless of whether or not the product is under their purview while simultaneously not having any ownership or responsibility of said product. Leads to endless design by committee, bureaucracy, and churn with unclear expectations.
Nobody really cares and there is just a general acceptance of incompetence:
There is this underlying culture of just show up and do the bare minimum. The lack of ownership of the products leads to an environment where incompetence is easy to hide and this just bleeds through the company. Any kind of innovation being pushed at lower levels is quickly quashed due to the middle management issues above.
Nothing ever ships:
So much of what you work on will never see the light of day, or if it does will be some half-baked, Frankenstein monster version of what you did because it got passed off to another team without you knowing a year later. Again due to many of the management issues listed above.
