Leadership feels completely out of touch, drifting further away from the day to day and chasing every shiny mention of agentic AI they can find. They talk about innovation but it’s all surface level, more about looking impressive to stakeholders than building anything customers can actually use. The old engineering culture that used to mean something has been pushed aside and everything now feels rushed just to tick off OKRs that nobody believes in.
Favouritism is everywhere and everyone sees it. The same people get the same projects, the same recognition and the same spotlight over and over again. It has turned into a tight little circle that shuts everyone else out, almost like a private club where who you know matters far more than what you contribute. Any sense of real meritocracy has faded.
Communication barely exists across teams. Departments operate like separate islands, each one doing its own thing with no real alignment. Company updates feel tightly scripted and not especially honest, and there’s never a chance to ask anything meaningful. Most engineers only hear about changes or reshuffles through whispers long before anything official is said.
Career growth is almost impossible. There’s always talk about development but the budget is never there. Promotions get delayed, pay reviews get put off and even basic training or conferences are treated like luxuries. Every promise gets pushed into the next financial year and then pushed again.
There’s a massive gap in engineering levels. People with completely different skill sets, impact and experience get lumped together as if they’re interchangeable. The competency framework might look polished on paper, but in reality it carries no real weight and rarely lines up with how decisions are made.
We’ve been losing deeply knowledgeable SMEs without any clear reason. People who carried years of history and hard won experience just walked out, and there’s no explanation beyond vague comments about alignment or shifting priorities. Their departures leave gaps that nobody seems prepared to fill.
Tech leads end up doing everything under the sun. They’re juggling hands on engineering, people management, product discussions, firefighting, planning and whatever else lands on their desk. It isn’t sustainable and the strain shows.
There’s no steady product direction. Roadmaps swing wildly depending on whatever trend happens to be popular that week. Plans don’t stick and long term stability barely makes it into the conversation anymore.
The return to office policy sits at two days a week, but the real issue is that ASOS spent years hiring people who live nowhere near the main office. Now those same folks are being told to make long and expensive trips just to be visible. It feels like a slow pushout of remote workers who were encouraged to join in the first place, and the frustration is obvious.
