The pace. Everything is an emergency due yesterday.
Perfection is expected along with working at incredibly fast pace. Resulting mistakes are not forgotten or forgiven.
The stress level is enormous. The working hours are like most jobs in silicon valley, but this is not a fun place to work. People don't build relationships or communities because they need to get their work done so they can get home for dinner, see their kids for an hour, then do more work. The work itself is not fun but a never ending slog.
There is a lack of infrastructure so everything is on excel spreadsheets which can easily have mistakes that are not easy to spot. And those mistakes are not forgiven.
Analysis paralysis is rampant. Data crunching adding 80% work on a project that may only provide 5% gain is an everyday occurrence. Doing things the most labor intensive way versus looking for best practices and efficiencies.
"Reasonably lean" means everyone is working 2-3 jobs. The company is running short staffed and relies on temps and contractors when full-time employees are needed.
Not a 'great place to work' atmosphere. It's a company run by MDs. MDs are not known for being warm and fuzzy. Every day felt like an unrewarding sweatshop in a gorgeous office with impossible deadlines.
Work is spread out so that anyone can be working at any job. So a new college grad could have an opportunity to run a project that usually happens to a more senior staff, but a more senior staff could be running spreadsheets that a new college grad would be doing at most companies. Great for someone moving up in their career but waste of time and money to pay senior staff to do analyst work.
