• Terrible, incompetent design leadership without experience at a company this level and size
• C-Suite doesn't understand design or it's role in a scale-up (a result of the above point)
• Emphasis on "Deel Speed" is toxic and doesn't allow for good results or quality (in terms of strategy)
• No design org vision or strategy. Designers are seen and treated as pixel pushers to execute Product's "vision" and not seen as partners
• No researchers and active pushback when talking about hiring them ("why hire researchers when the designers can do it?"). That approach can work for smaller companies but its ridiculous when your organization is 65+ designers.
• Design leads are stuck with doing too much IC work. Again, for an org at this scale, it doesn't work.
• New designers are mostly set up to fail. Often thrown into the fray and expected to execute asap. 7-8 designers have quit within their first 3 months in the last year.
• Bad compensation, fuzzy details about stock options when being hired. Opaque policies around raises and compensation.
• Roadmaps routinely get derailed when the CEO or COO hears a random client wants something. Teams constantly have to reprioritize from these random features requests that only benefit a small number of users due to C-Suite intervention. Again, at a company at this scale, that's ridiculous.
