First and foremost the biggest issue is gender inequality. I regularly witnessed women get talked over or be completely ignored in meetings and left in the shadows of loud, pretentious men who are good at managing up. I consistently noticed that women were rarely present in leadership reviews I took part in.
Middle management is inexperienced or non existent in most cases, while leadership micro manages and blocks many projects from shipping on time, if at all. Many late nights of wasted work happen purely based off personal disinterest in the work with no actual constructive feedback. To top it all off there is no real process in place and cross functional communication is terrible. Everyone wants to blame everyone else and is looking for someone to point the finger at rather than working together to solve the problem. If you have a manager that you can be friends with, you’ll be fine, if not you’ll likely get caught up in the chaos, blocked on projects and passed up for growth opportunity.
“We are not a perks company” is regularly messaged yet the salary is far below competitors. Offering benefits to your employees isn’t a bad thing and you can do it without going overboard. It doesn’t help that the “unlimited vacation” policy isn’t actually respected and will quickly be held against you if they need a reason to knock on your performance.
It’s a shame things have gotten as bad as they have because the product and brand have a lot of potential. But when you only invest in certain people you’re not going to accomplish much in the long term.
