The company is an embodiment of corporate inefficiency—rigid, clunky, and utterly incapable of adapting to modern work environments. Having worked across start-ups and scale-ups, I’ve never encountered such penny-pinching from a company of this scale. Salaries are insultingly low, often €10,000 to €15,000 below market rate in Tech for Madrid or Barcelona, which is shocking for a company of this size and supposed stature.
The HR department stands out as one of the worst I’ve encountered in my career—spineless, deceitful, and entirely self-serving. Rather than providing support, they specialize in manipulating narratives to make themselves look competent while throwing employees/candidates under the bus. Their dishonesty is appalling, and they have no qualms about outright lying to cover their own failures.
Despite being a multi-billion dollar company, the lack of resources is beyond embarrassing. You're expected to do the work of a start-up team running on fumes, but without any of the agility or dynamism that might compensate for the shortfall. The message is clear: do more with less, but without any of the support or tools necessary to succeed.
Of course, your experience depends entirely on which department you land in. I had the misfortune of reporting to a manager who was not only inexperienced but directionless in her leadership. She frequently spoke to the team as if we were children and felt compelled to micromanage areas of my work in which she had no expertise. Moreover, her integrity as a professional left much to be desired. I was explicitly promised during the interview process that key foundational work had been completed and that sufficient resources would be provided, only to arrive and find virtually nothing in place. Aside from a basic project management tool and Confluence, there was little to no infrastructure for me to do my job effectively.
I was also coerced into starting during the summer holiday season, when most of the company was out of office, only to be saddled with a pitiful budget for research tools and tasked with managing two projects—one of which was substantial, plagued by shifting requirements, a very tight deadline, and inaccessibility to stakeholders. All of this was expected within the first 1.5 months while I was still onboarding and attempting to understand a complex product.
Despite these constraints, I worked with what little I had. But apparently, that wasn’t enough. I was unceremoniously terminated just one week before my probation period ended–while in the middle of running testing for a research project, with no prior warnings or discussions about my performance. The decision was abrupt and came without any indication that my work was unsatisfactory. In fact, I was led to believe everything was on track, making the termination all the more baffling and indicative of this manager's lack of integrity and unrealistic expectations.
If you're a researcher reading this, it's crucial to avoid an environment where your expertise is neither understood nor valued. Here, you’ll encounter a manager who claims to understand your role but clearly doesn’t. You'll be expected to perform with minimal resources, and when the inevitable happens, you'll be blamed for failing to achieve the impossible. It's not about your skills or dedication; it's about being set up to fail from the start.
