Despite the high hopes I had when I started, the company never lived up to the hype. While some change is always necessary, much of it could have been avoided with a few ounces of foresight. Many shifts in strategy were announced with little warning, for immediate implementation, but the plans that came along with them were half-baked at best, leaving the bottom half of the org chart to just figure it out and hope we don't lose customers in the process.
This ever-shifting strategy also caused many of the layoffs mentioned in countless other reviews. Departments were built up with high-quality people who left good-paying jobs to pursue a dream of building something special. Then, without notice, those teams/departments/business units would be laid off due to an often short-sighted change in approach from leadership. Those who were able to stay on often took a reduction in pay and title to do so. Unfortunately this became all too common. Loyalty, tenure, and quality of work could never be relied on as a shield from layoffs, and even the most senior were constantly wondering if they could be next.
After seeing so many good people let go through no fault of their own, seeing strategies announced and implemented that I knew were destined to fail, taking pay cuts to survive layoffs, and working for leadership that preached transparency but didn't practice it, I had to take a hard look and see if my hopes were still grounded in reality. Unfortunately they no longer were.
