* Lack of industry standard productivity tools for programmers. The standard setup includes no IDE and no GUI debugger.
* Bad code. Debugging is done by reading log files. No unit tests. Most developers are non-CS people who learned how to code at the company, meaning they had no prior notions about what software development is like and therefore don't question the Metaswitch way of doing things.
* I could have been given a better sense of what of the code would be like during the interview process.
* Standard setup is to program inside a VM, which makes typing slow. The VM pauses randomly and sometimes breaks, destroying your work, requiring hours to re-set-up. However, WSL is an option; some people took the initiative to switch to it, and it will probably eventually become the norm. It's faster and enables better tooling but it can make your computer slow. So either way, the laptops need to be better to accommodate the development setup.
* Not enough expertise in the software being developed. Very reliant on a few long serving employees.
* Getting up to speed and further learning are very slow, partly because of the complexity of the subject matter and the complexity of the code but also due to not enough active knowledge sharing. I didn't understand what other members of my team were doing most of the time.
* Teams are burdened with too many areas of ownership for them to be effective at all of it. The decision of who should own what is sometimes poor. Sometimes ownership changed suddenly with no handover.
* Getting anything done is very slow. Compilation is slow due to poor decisions. Automated testing is slow. Manual testing is slow due to lengthy setup. Figuring out how to solve a problem is slow due to convoluted code. Reading log files is slow. Some logs take long to appear, although that might have changed since I left.
* Lots of manual testing. Regression testing periods are weeks long, if your team is unlucky enough to be chosen to do it. No dedicated QAs.
* Regularly up against internal deadlines. Little room for continuous improvement.
* It didn't seem like concerns expressed by myself and others were leading to or would lead to any change.
* You will be disappointed if you are passionate about technology and programming, want to do quality work, want to feel productive, or want to feel you are gaining programming experience.
* My mental health was badly impacted by my experience. I don't think lockdown was responsible.
* I chose to leave after 9 months.
