- salaries are falling behind, and the company refuses to address this problem. Instead, management tries to sell a story along the lines of "aren't you lucky you have a job, other companies are firing people" It's only a matter of time before this is reflected on the quality of our hires and therefore product. No money = no talent
- the "benefits" are overplayed -- we have average lunches once a week. Pension contributions are a meagre 5%, just above the legal minimum
- employees are not appreciated/recognised. Instead of actual help (£££), we get the classic startup package of mental well-being training and so on
- autonomous teams don't work, they only create technical debt
- knowing people goes a long way because the company has no structure
All the problems I described have been known to management for years, they just lack the will to fix them. They think things are fine as they are.