Trying to be modern under outdated management - SDE 1 Instahyre Employee Review

Very little consideration for developer well-being; decisions often ignore basic realities on the ground. Paid leave policy is already below market, and the company only "benchmarks" when it benefits leadership. Mandatory office attendance during high AQI periods has led to predictable outcomes: people get sick and burn through limited leave. Employees who relocated to Noida for the coworking setup are now effectively stuck, with limited ability to travel home during holidays/festivals once leave is exhausted. Many companies even worse provide some flexibility (hybrid/WFH blocks) around holidays or during health/environmental issues. Here, even reasonable requests are routinely rejected with vague or inconsistent justification. Requests for practical mitigation (e.g., hybrid schedule, air purifiers, basic workplace health measures) have been ignored. Pre-planned leaves routinely get questioned, stalled, or quietly blocked—often because management can’t plan capacity. Any pushback gets labeled "not aligned," and quickly turns into performance pressure (including PIP talk) or selective scrutiny. Expect an always-on culture: weekend/after-hours pings. Boundaries aren’t respected because planning is weak and urgency is manufactured. The 5-days/week coworking mandate reads less like collaboration and more like control and micromanagement. Initially it seemed like engineering leadership was the issue; later it became clear broader leadership endorses this culture i.e prioritizing compliance and control over competence.