The company has a poor retention rate. Most people do not stick around for the first two years. Hence, they don't have resources who are qualified enough to lead junior/entry level resources. The company is also in an existential crisis where they juggle between being a consulting firm, a NGO (like WHO, BMGF), or a government organisation due to the nature of their relationships with governments (the only clients). The scope of projects are undefined and projects do not have clear deliverables or timelines.
The job requires a "yes sir" attitude towards government officials and the scope of the project is ever changing, depending on who is in power in the government at that time. Since the organisation is so focussed on making itself irreplacable for governments, we often have to do work that we know has no impact but it is important to either please the government stakeholders (mainly) or the donors who fund the project (BMGF, WB, GAVI) - and this can be extremely frustrating.
Lastly, the security policies are way too extreme. We have been given macbooks and iphones but they are extensively monitored (every click on the laptop is being monitored and stored in data logs). There is limited functionality on work devices and we often have to do things manually (highly inefficient) just because our internal application store does not support a software needed to perform the task. Due to the security policies, the place feels like a prison sometimes, ngl.
