After funding, C-level lost interest, product goals were lost and money was blown on vanity side projects and a poorly conceived explosion from a functional, focussed monolith to a sprawling coupled microservices 'architecture'. Since then, shoot-the-messenger, bullying culture, layoffs and low-confidence in leadership has resulted in teams led by yes-people, with most remaining staff regularly scrolling the job boards.
- Arrogant, incompetent, reactive leadership. In one case a team was hired then laid off in the space of a couple of months.
- Direction shaped by a handful of 'clever' back-end engineers with little product experience and poor leadership skills
- Disdain for loyal staff - regular layoffs and misleading promises
- Pathological, low-trust culture based on scapegoating and messenger-shooting - loyal productive employees put on PIPs.
