Communication suffers greatly at the mid level. Vijay does an outstanding job keeping everyone informed from the top with the frequent updates, with more transparency than I've ever seen. Team-level communication within a product family is generally pretty good and most have a decent grasp on what is going on and which general direction it is going in.
The struggle is between departments, and possibly at the top of each department down. Often, the major divisions of the Pindrop organization have little idea what the others are doing or what challenges they face. Members of one organization are not invited to participate in parts of another organization, which leads to a lot of: "throwing it over the fence", "that's their problem" and having someone hand you a grenade with no pin. This all creates resentment and it's not healthy in the long run. I like the other departments and what they do, I want to spend more time understanding it. We can all help each other out if we understand each other's struggles and motivation.
Requirements can often be vague. Process needs to be documented better and enforced to ensure consistency in the organization. It's not uncommon to be confused about what you're supposed to be doing as far as process goes. This is a common problem in a company growing so fast, and I'm pretty confident it will be worked out as Pindrop adjusts. The engineering staff was doubled within the last year and that takes some getting used to.
