Informal leadership opportunities/learning opportunities are frequent, actual promotions are rare. It feels like there is a "secret" org chart - several people are related to the CEO, and there are cliques of people who used to work together at previous companies. There are a lot of new employees this year (some due to growth, others turnover) which can be tricky culturally. Teams are currently re-forming and determining their identities and norms. The Agile Transformation is in its "storming" stage where there is a lot of discontent, and morale is low on some teams - hopefully this improves, but I'm worried.
Even though this is a small software company, the space they're in is heavily regulated by the FDA. As a result, the SDLC processes are very formal and even rigid. I think people aren't prepared enough/educated enough about this in the interview process - about how this regulation makes software development different from other small companies. That can lead to false expectations of new employees.