Leadership and management is horrible. Over the last few years, I witnessed several highly qualified contributors to the success of this organization be thrown into a hostile work environment, treated unfairly, abused with heavy workloads, set up to fail, or just suddenly let go to make room for friends of the current leadership, usually brought in from Sabre or American Airlines, whether these friends were qualified for the positions they were filling or not.
The work environment has become very political. Too many "leaders" are more concerned with their own career trajectory and "CYA" instead of owning the outcome. The work culture over the lest few years has transformed from "work hard/play hard" to "work hard/what have you done for me lately/that's not good enough." I had several colleagues that felt the only option they had was to be a cheerleader, stay quiet, or risk being targeted for a "personal improvement plan" - a precursor to getting fired or laid off.
Some managers do not listen to what their direct reports tell them. Other managers hear only what they want to hear. Still others will micromanage their employees to the point of absurdity.
The leadership has a bad habit of reducing staffing levels to meet numbers for Wall Street, which places unnecessary burdens on and compounds difficulties for the remaining employees to get products to market as clean as possible.
Employees in the past were required to fill out Voice of the Employee surveys, and were then required to form teams to make recommendations about how to address survey questions with negative feedback. These recommendations were always submitted to management and then largely ignored.
There was (and probably still is) an idolatrous adherence to process. There was a certain rigidity in the development process that makes a joke of the word "agile." Flexible? Not so much.
Given that there are only a handful of products in development in Plano and everyone is assigned to an Agile team, boredom can set in quickly.
There was a lot of talk about innovation, but not much innovation actually happening. Management doesn't want to invest in it.
There was also a lot of talk about being willing to fail, but what is left unsaid is that you better make sure that failure is a small one because it will cost you.
Career mobility is poor, unless you are on very good terms with the leadership and have an advocate there. Getting the job done and done well will just result in an increasing workload, not career advancement. Clearly defined goals for being able to advance were at best vague YOY. If you want any technical training that is actually useful, you will have to get it on your own time and dime.
Regarding automation, it can be useful but the current leadership views it as an excuse to keep payroll costs and head count down. The fact that automation scripts need constant maintenance and attention during execution seems to have eluded the leadership team. There is no interest in getting the proper tools and equipment for the job.
Finally, TOO MANY MEETINGS that last far too long.
