Employees are not empowered to make meaningful decisions. All such authority resides with 2 - 3 managers who already have their own strong opinions of what the right answers are, will never show up on time (if at all) to a meeting, and are not skilled in providing constructive feedback. Experienced hires will be frustrated that their expertise is not considered; recent grads may struggle to get the mentoring they require.
Communication is extremely deficient and information silos mean you will rarely have access to all the tools, data, and support to do your job effectively. Priorities are changed frequently and without warning and may differ whether asking the owner or the general manager...so if you are keeping one boss happy, you may be running afoul of the other. Management does not appreciate and is often not respectful of differing opinions; longer-term employees have learned to keep their opinions to or amongst themselves.
The company overstates its project pipeline and advancement opportunities to potential employees/contractors, just as it overstates its technical capabilities and engineering bench to potential clients. It relies heavily on temporary contract labor to staff anything larger than a small project, resulting in little team cohesion or company culture. HCG will have a hard time reaching a critical mass where pipeline and staffing are no longer issues due to poor management structure and lack of technical focus. (Is it a training company? A consulting firm? A system integrator or a staffing agency? Can a 30-person firm really house the knowledge to provide all these services to every industry in existence?)
