Held back by traditional culture and weak leadership - Fontend Engineer FM Group Employee Review

FM Group operates in a traditional industry, and that mindset is still deeply embedded in the way the company operates. You will often hear arguments like “it has always worked this way” or “that’s just how it is.” That attitude shows up in the products, regulations, and culture, and makes meaningful progress far more difficult than it should be. Another major issue is that input from specialists are regularly dismissed. As a result, the organization keeps running into avoidable problems, only to brush them aside. This creates a frustrating pattern in which employees can see issues coming well in advance, are ignored, and later end up thinking, “I told you so.” Over time, that creates the feeling that lessons are not being learned and that professional input carries little to no weight. The company also promotes itself as informal, but in practice that informality feels selective and inconsistent. While the culture is marketed as approachable and relaxed, employees may still be called out for dressing too casually or for not presenting themselves in a more traditional professional way. That contradiction makes the culture feel unclear and inauthentic; having to align to their personal values. During my time here, I saw a significant number of developers leave, largely due to poor management and a lack of confidence in leadership. More than 15 developers leaving over five years suggests a structural problem rather than a series of isolated incidents. At the same time, the company appears more willing to invest in external hires than in developing and retaining internal talent. That creates the impression that replaceability is valued more than long-term team health, expertise, or cultural improvement. It also does little to fix the deeper management issues that keep driving people away. It is telling that the FE team is now almost fully outsourced. Which says a lot about how internal capability has been managed and how little long-term investment has been made in building a stable in-house engineering culture. What is most disappointing is the gap between branding and reality. FM Group markets itself with slogans about growth, flourishing and opportunity, and a flat org, but the day-to-day experience often feels very different. Growth seems to be encouraged only within narrow boundaries, and colleagues in my team and area of expertise are often assessed more on soft skills and how well they adapt to management preferences than on actual professional expertise. Because leadership does not seem to have the technical or professional insight needed to properly evaluate specialists, there is limited room for meaningful recognition or development in those areas. As a result, growth and development are talked about more than they are genuinely supported. I personally bought into that promise, but the reality turned out to be a lack of transparency, unrealistic expectations, and decisions that were repeatedly postponed rather than resolved. Next to this is the company very hierarchical, being called out on when talking directly to upper management, forced to communicatie with your team manager, they to their manager and management to the CEO + more than 10 (mostly old and traditional) owners due to fusions which all have their say and veto which blocks growth. Some smaller day to day frustrations include the office’s poor public transport connections, sour coffee, bland tea, windows that cannot be opened for fresh air, little to no benifits, sick leave will cost you money, and a mess of unequal benefits due to favoritism or fusions. These things are not the core problem, but they do add to the overall experience. It is not wonder devs use this as a stepping stone or temp position.