Leadership alignment is all over the place.
Direction shifts often, and not strategically. You can spend weeks designing a process, workflow, SOP, or CM framework only to have it upended by someone who wasn’t even in the meeting where it was approved.
Micromanagement in pockets — especially toward CM and QA.
Being told to do things you already knew, already planned, or already completed becomes… a weekly sport.
You have to perform competently while also being treated like you just got here yesterday.
Heavy technical debt — and CM gets pulled in last.
I inherited:
• 41,000+ Redmine ticketsan
• A migration to JIRA starting way too late
• SOPs updated twice in one year due to shifting platforms
• Hardware, software, FPGA, and QA teams all blocked by outdated or mismatched processes
CM and QA consistently get involved late, and then we’re expected to fix the mess with zero runway.
High expectations / little empowerment.
You’re responsible for configuration integrity, baselines, audits, ECR/ECO verification, picklists, FPGA changes, Redmine/JIRA workflows, etc.
But when you try to implement actual industry-standard structure?
It’s “too much,” “too rigid,” or “we’re not ready for that.”
Meanwhile, the CMC Audit is in May, and… CM is somehow still treated as optional.
Cross-functional relationships can be tense.
There are amazing people, but the unnecessary friction between CM, QA, and certain managers makes effective collaboration hard.