Pros
• Talented engineers and genuinely good people who keep things running despite constant change.
• Exposure to modern fintech technologies, open banking integrations, and regulatory frameworks - valuable if you’re resilient and adaptable.
• Some teams have managed to create local pockets of stability and collaboration, though rarely for long.
Cons
• It’s a revolving-door environment. Just as teams start to stabilise, new leadership waves, reorgs, or “strategic shifts” undo months of work.
• The latest trend was a chaotic push toward “AI adoption,” used more to optimise headcount than to truly improve how people work. It added even more noise and unrealistic expectations.
• Middle managers are stuck in the middle: unable to balance conflicting priorities, stakeholder demands, and goals that simply don’t align with available resources or reality.
• Endless meetings, cross-team syncs, and steering sessions eat most of the workday, yet you’re still expected to deliver at 120% capacity.
• Psychological safety is low. Raising issues often gets reframed as a lack of ownership or positivity. Gaslighting and mixed messages are common.
• The company hasn’t decided if it wants to be a startup or a regulated enterprise - it operates like both, with all the chaos of one and all the bureaucracy of the other.