Overrated and Obnoxious - Anonymous employee Complex Employee Review

Consistency, Team oriented, Creative, A place to get your foot in the door

Not enough of this kind of flow.

Complex had genuine brand equity and talented people throughout the organization. That makes it all the more frustrating to watch the company be run the way it is.

Executive leadership operates on ego, tenure, and proximity to power rather than performance or accountability. There is no coherent business strategy, and more tellingly, no apparent interest in developing one. Decision-making is opinion-based at the top and the consequences flow downward. Appointments are made based on relationships rather than qualifications, including in roles that require deep technical expertise. Asking seasoned professionals to report into leadership with no relevant background isn't just a structural mistake, it's demoralizing to people who have spent careers building real expertise. Compensation and growth are effectively frozen. Annual reviews were canceled under the guise of budget constraints, which reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of what reviews are for. Performance conversations, goal-setting, and professional development are not line items; canceling them signals that the company has given up on investing in its people. The RTO policy is the clearest window into how leadership thinks about its workforce. The mandate exists with no meaningful connection to productivity, output, or business outcomes. The stated rationale, making the office look occupied, is not a strategy. Exceptions are applied inconsistently and without explanation. The net effect is a policy that reads as punitive toward exactly the kind of senior, expert, autonomous professionals a media-tech company should be fighting to retain. Layoffs have been handled with a level of callousness that is hard to overstate. The manner in which people have been let go reflects a broader indifference to the humans behind the headcount. If you are a high performer who values transparency, strategic clarity, and being treated like a professional adult, look carefully before accepting an offer here.