Constant uphill battle with Product organization
Pros
There are decent folks in User Experience Design (UED) that try their best to do what's right for the user. Most senior executives are on the same page with us grunts and they advocate for organizational change (it's slow, but it IS happening). Things like "Customer Driven Innovation Program" are teaching managers how to actually think like a customers, which they've never done on their own before. The benefits (health, free stuff, etc.) are great, and our cafeteria in San Jose was awesome (but in the other branches, not so much). I didn't get a chance to do the Employee Stock Purchase Program but I hear its super good too.
Cons
The Product Owners are a thick layer of "dead wood" middle management, as one person described it. Often, there are POs that have crazy amounts of control over just ONE webpage sometimes, so it's impossible to change anything on the site because they need to protect their jobs and the jobs of their direct reports. (And yes, they still wonder why we have so many different login screens and Web flow visual designs...couldn't be because the POs refuse to talk to each other, could it? No, ofcourse not.). They also push out features without ever knowing/researching true user needs, or even understanding their own technology. Frustrating! The big "transformation" programs are a smokescreen. Many teams aren't doing proper Agile (bad story estimation, splitting/merging stories arbitrarily, cooking performance numbers, fudging or ignoring progress surveys), and some POs aren't even Agile trained even though it is required now. I've heard rumors of POs sending their employees to take trainings for them but I can say 100% if thats true or not. It wouldnt surprise me though.