A career trap for skilled people - Anonymous employee efood Employee Review

Things have been getting worse since the company grew over 150 people, and especially over the past year. What used to be a team of friends working together is now a house of cards made of managers (C-levels or their friends), trying to maintain the status quo in order to serve their personal vested interests. The other employees (especially those without personal relationships with management) are treated like garbage and are never given opportunities to grow and advance their career. The brand name is strong, so it is easy to attract new and skilled employees from other companies. However, these people are never given an opportunity to prove their worth. All interesting work is done by the inner circle of seniors, while the rest are left with meaningless tasks. Raises, bonuses and vesting options are only reserved for the select few that do the dirty work without complaining. The newly hired employees are offered much higher salaries than experienced people that have been with the company for years, regardless of actual skills. Everyone with an opinion is either ignored and bullied, or shot down / fired when they start becoming a threat. The 'agile' ways of working have turned into a joke, due to the actions of some arrogant and ambitious 'coaches' over the last year that are as agile as concrete. These people are using old and trusted methods like divide and conquer, bullying, extortion, death by JIRA, gaslighting and constant team changes to keep everyone in line. They are typically setting up people for fail so that when their subordinates actually fail to meet any vague expectations (according to their ultimate judgement), they can appear as saviors delivering solutions and saving the ship from sinking. People receive no actual, actionable feedback about their performance, just rants and public shaming when something goes wrong. The morale is extremely low and a number of people have happily left or are seeking employment elsewhere. The CEOs are powerless - their vision (if any) and priorities are never communicated to the people actually doing the work, and it seems like they let others run the show. HR is aware of the problems but has failed to take any action in addressing the complaints of employees, even when serious incidents like bullying attacks from sociopath managers are reported. They are more concerned with keeping employee engagement ratings high and stuff like Best Places to work awards (sic) or throwing pizza parties. Not to mention 'anonymous' employee surveys that mysteriously end up with private meetings / interviews with HR regarding how they view their place in the company.