Where to start? For starters, the atmosphere and cultural decline. There were multiple layoffs which makes a noticeable impact on moral. Teams were expected to move at the same pace while lacking in resources. Individuals were often times taking on responsibilities of multiple roles while being told from leadership that working 80+ hours was expected. Benefits have been slashed year by year. At this point there's an ongoing joke on when the free Thanksgiving turkeys will be removed from the benefits program. Raises are minimal at best and have dwindled every single year. Top preforming teammates won't even get close to cost of living at this point while being told we should count our blessing that we even have a job. There's been talk of removing yearly merit increases all together. Once you sign on with a certain wage, you'll be locked in, even if you get a promotion as they're only allowed to increase pay buy x %. While I mentioned earlier that it's a great learning opportunity, the gap between skills and pay as the years crawl by becomes more and more, to the point where an employee could easily double their pay should the move to a different company.
Pay and benefits aside, there's also the day to day life. Procedures are minimal and documentation is close to none as most teams are expected to move at a pace that simply doesn't allow for the time to document anything. Deadlines and expectations are set by executive level leadership without an understanding of effort involved, leaving the actual team scrambling to meet deadlines to avoid being marked as failures. The work is almost sometimes unrealistic and teams often times create products that are sub-par due to the lack of support from the higher ups. Not being able to finish a single project, or worse, delivering a product that is less than what the team could produce due to unrealistic expectations is demoralizing.
Promotion won't happen either, unless you know the right people and are of the right personality type. Show interest and they will "train" you for years on end, giving you managerial tasks under the excuse of prepping you for the role while you maintain an associate title and salary.
