Loyalty test disguised as a restructure - don't mistake compliance for performance
Pros
Some genuinely talented people at the individual contributor level. The product space has real potential, and early-stage work was energising. Remote flexibility existed before it was stripped back.
Cons
The recent layoffs were not a business necessity - they were a culling of voices. The pattern was unmistakable: engineers and managers who raised concerns, challenged direction, or simply had independent opinions were disproportionately let go. People who kept their heads down and agreed with everything? Still employed. Call it what it is - a loyalty test that cost the company its best executors. The engineering and god knows what product or general or program or project leadership tier that was brought in with much fanfare has delivered nothing measurable. Compensation for these roles is significantly above what the individual contributors who built the product were ever paid. The result: a bloated leadership layer with polished communication and hollow output, while the people who wrote the actual code were shown the door. If you stay quiet, agree publicly, and disagree privately with no paper trail, you will survive. If you are the kind of engineer or manager who believes honest feedback makes teams better, you will be managed out - or laid off when the next round of "restructuring" arrives. They will call it business conditions. It isn't.
