Unfair policies and poor planning are hurting engineering culture - Software Engineer Instahyre Employee Review

My concern is not that the company expects accountability or wants better business outcomes. Every company wants fewer bugs, better execution, and stronger results. The issue is that some current policies and management practices are creating the opposite effect. The biggest problem is the unfair and inconsistent work policy. Some employees work remotely, some work hybrid, and some are required to come to office five days a week. The criteria for this difference is not clear, and from an employee’s perspective it feels random and unfair. It has been around a year since some of us were moved to office. This concern has been raised multiple times, but there has been no meaningful change. Collaboration is often used as the reason for office attendance, but key stakeholders such as PMs are not consistently present in office. Developers are expected to come daily, while the people they need to collaborate with may still be remote or hybrid. This defeats the purpose of forced office attendance. There is also very limited flexibility even during genuine emergencies or reasonable personal situations. If daily office attendance is required, there should also be practical flexibility for health, emergencies, high AQI situations, festivals, and other genuine cases. Another major issue is unnecessary urgency. Leadership may want fewer bugs and better business impact, which is understandable. But poor planning and artificial urgency from middle management create rushed work, unclear context, pressure on developers, and eventually more bugs. Engineering culture also needs improvement. There are legacy codebase issues, tightly coupled areas, limited testing, and a lot of bug-fixing work. These issues cannot be solved only by increasing pressure on developers. They require better planning, better requirements, stronger technical direction, and realistic timelines. The current culture feels too focused on attendance, visibility, follow-ups, and whether employees are “aligned.” Good engineering needs ownership, trust, clarity, and calm execution. Job security does not feel strong. If someone questions unfair policies or pushes back on unrealistic expectations, it can quickly feel like an alignment or performance issue. I genuinely want the company to do well, but these policies seem harmful for long-term business. Low morale leads to attrition. Attrition creates knowledge gaps. Knowledge gaps create delays, rushed work, and more bugs.