Management is absolutely terrible. Both initial companies were founded by brainy engineers that have since taken on various VP roles, leaving company direction in the hands of an MBA that is looking exclusively to sell. As such, nobody at the top has any managerial experience or training, so yelling, favoritism, and a culture of 'every project is critical' is the norm. Everyone at the top is just waiting for their golden parachute to come in, and all make 6-figures and get regular bonuses. No one below the top 10 get stock options, everyone else is salaried and expected to happily put in 60 hour workweeks and be able to travel out of country weeks on end at will. Work/life balance is something an employee is expected to figure out 'on their own time'. Work functions are either inane or creepy, and seem largely geared towards management's children instead of employees. Pay is, at best, 80% of the industry standard, and benefits are laughable. Bonuses are measured against whether management likes you, and the occasional random treat - largely lunches or tickets to local sporting events that management isn't using that night - always go to attractive salespeople and/or brownosers. Quarterly management meetings are uncomfortable - individuals and departments are regularly called out on supposed faults - and lack substance. Anyone that raises concerns (pay, benefits, morale, treatment, improvements, etc) are dismissed or hassled, and management regularly polls employees for 'dirt' on others.
If none of the above has convinced you, here's three specific points to consider:
- 3 different HR people have quit in the last year, and the latest was hired solely to find new hires and stop the mass exodus.
- One of the VPs has a pair of cars that combined cost well over $700,000, and both were purchased in the same year. This is more than every single engineer, support engineer, programmer, and other technical staff make COMBINED annually.
- Absolutely nothing is measured or balanced against former or current employees, resulting in situations where a manager of a team of 4 makes 50% more than a manager of a team of 9, but then hired someone that made more than themselves. Since the entire companies payroll was inadvertently made public, everyone knows this. Titles, experience, education? Meaningless.