The company has (or had) a strong vision, but it’s being dragged down by outdated, small-minded leadership. There’s a real lack of leadership at the top, and it shows in almost every part of the organization. They don’t seem well positioned to handle changes in the federal funding climate, and the infrastructure often feels like an ongoing experiment instead of something intentional and stable.
What makes this more frustrating is that there are a lot of smart, innovative people who genuinely care about the company. Very few of those people are in leadership, and many of them have been laid off. Meanwhile, project and program managers often seem less competent than the people they manage. Leadership regularly ignores serious middle management problems (PMs who throw their teams under the bus, bully/coerce employees, and speak badly of clients), and take credit for work done by really talented staff. In some cases, basic project management skills (project planning, standard office tools) were missing from PMs.
Favoritism feels like the biggest driver of advancement, not performance or competence. There are people very close to the top who many employees see as ineffective, but concerns raised by staff don’t seem to matter. It feels like leadership won’t act until something forces them to. I personally raised concerns about potential compliance risks that I felt weren’t taken seriously. Based on what I observed, the organization often felt legally and operationally exposed in ways that were concerning.
Internal processes are either missing or inconsistently applied. Colleagues and I observed patterns that felt biased or inconsistent. There’s also a heavy reliance on AI tools without the critical thinking or guardrails needed to use them responsibly.
The company also really struggles to use the talent it already has. People with advanced degrees and deep experience get ignored in favor of the loudest voices in the room, which are often the least informed.
Unless the company makes a pivot, it’s hard for me to see how they stay competitive in (or frankly, even survive) the current federal contracting environment.
