A management that treats you like a 24x7 operating robot. This is widespread from top to bottom. That is to say, from director level to the frontline supervisor. If there is a good manager/supervisor, with some human qualities, they get corrupted into this after a while. Otherwise, they will not survive. This is ingrained in the culture.
Nothing happens on a timely manner. Most of the time, the timelines are utterly unrealistic, and set by the managers. Even if they might have been somewhat realistic in the initial estimation, the managers and tech leads cut them down to nothingness, so that no human can achieve them, even if they work 24x7.
Due to high turnover, getting something as simple as a firewall request processed is a nightmare. Also, no replacements, or not enough replacements are hired, so all that existing work falls on the people who are yet to leave. Also, those who never leave, are the people who cannot find employment elsewhere.
The company runs on interns. There are more interns working on the frontline than senior people. That is alright, if they are properly trained and monitored, but that cannot be practically done either. The seniors are tasked with training and monitoring the interns, on top of their work, without any compensation, and without any additional time allowances. The seniors are still expected to do an excellent job of it all, even if the time to both manage interns and do their work is not enough. Also, interns don't stick around due to all these problems, so it is a revolving door. After their internship is over, they vanish. The seniors are in an endless cycle of training new people. Therefore, the quality of final work is low, bug ridden, and takes a lot more time to fix the issues that arise, which is another burden added to the senior people. They might even be blamed for not monitoring the interns properly.
Management listens to all your problems, but that is all. They only listen. They do not care, nor do they provide any solutions. They will either tell someone else to look into it. Most of the time, that someone else is the one who actually do some work, but is an individual contributor. People who barely do any work can slack all they want without any repercussion. Most of the time, these slackers are promoted faster than the people who do any real work. So, the toxic and ineffective management continues, unbothered.
Teams, and tech leads that try to dump everything on good performers and take credit later. A great deal of ball passing, If there are multiple parties involved in a task, which most of the time it is, expect it to be a game of football.
After all the meetings for the day are done, there is barely enough time to do any work. There's a meeting for everything. Daily stand ups, that span for hours, with no favourable outcomes. Daily updates with managers, weekly updates with managers, there are plenty. This is because managers have to prove their worth, by showing that they are doing 'something', but what that actually does is prevent the people who actually do the real work, from doing their work properly.
Working long hours, weekends, holidays, these are expected and mandatory. Work-life balance, never heard of it. Most of the time, this is a result of those unrealistic deadlines. People take personal leaves to get some actual work done.
No direction, or a plan for the future. Maybe there is, but they are almost never communicated down the line. Even if they do, they never come into fruition, and drag on for years. The management does a great job hiding their faults and/or blaming their inefficiencies on the front-line people. Sometimes, they force the subordinates to cover up their mess-ups, by telling them to work more for longer. This trickles down, nicely, from the very top to bottom.
Salaries are subpar. No inflation-based adjustments. Good luck surviving on 2021's salary ranges. The salary given is not enough to withstand all the above-mentioned perils, but for the slackers, this is a goldmine. A net profit, I'd say.
Don't be fooled by the 'a great place to work' certificate, or the random events, and parties they hold. They are just for the show, or for good PR. In other words, that is the only good thing one can expect, if it is their thing.
This is basically a sweatshop for software engineers.
