Overall Summary
The startup culture at Kernel touts a mentality that we "can do this together". This is reinforced by town halls celebrating milestones in developing technology. Bryan is warm and charismatic, as is his role to be. The reality for many is, that if the funding is not there, togetherness cannot be achieved and the flock is culled. This is a reality of any business but Kernel's decisions are jarring when benchmarked against the strong team culture they promote.
Staffing Issues
On several occasions, staff that were not favored by managers were cut in certain departments. As a small company, there is little insulation from personality conflicts. Despite good performance in your role, if you are not blessed by key personnel, a short campaign is waged to have you easily removed. Highest-level remote managers had little visibility of the "grunt" work, so while they may have played a fairer hand, lack of direct involvement in daily operations, required them to entrust biased decisions with ineffective oversight.
Compensation
Starts competitive but stagnates throughout employment in high-skilled roles. The company is incredibly thrifty for operations. Stock options are not recommended when considering overall compensation.