- Founders out of their depth – The jump from a start‑up to a scale‑up happened very quickly. Strategic clarity, internal comms, and basic org design never caught up. The founders are clearly not equipped to deal with the scale and speed of the company and are taking a lot of wrong decisions.
- Climate market downturn – The “ESG gold rush” has cooled. Budgets for climate software are harder to unlock, new logos close slower, and this directly hit Sweep’s pipeline. Revenue targets on the other hand still assume 2022‑style growth, so pressure only increases.
- Top‑down, old‑school French management – Despite the modern mission, decision‑making mirrors a traditional CAC 40 firm: information flows up, orders flow down. Skip‑level conversations are discouraged, and challenging a senior viewpoint can quietly stall your career. “Consensus” often means “wait for leadership to decide.”
- Chronic overwork and burnout – Stretch OKRs and understaffed teams are the norm. Several high‑performers have taken months‑long medical leave or even left alltogether, yet the root causes (excessive workload, unclear priorities, last‑minute pivots) persist. HR initiatives exist on slides, not in day‑to‑day reality.
- Morale decay among the best people – The same passionate colleagues who joined for the mission now look drained. Turnover is climbing, positivity is dropping, and cynicism seeps into coffee chats.
- Manager roulette – Some team leads coach, shield and inspire; others are plain toxic. There’s no robust leadership‑training program, so your experience can swing from career‑accelerating to toxic depending on whose reporting line you land in.
- Sparse perks and fading flexibility – Beyond salary, benefits are thin: stock options are structured so unfavorably they feel almost worthless, and the once “fully remote” policy has been rolled back. Remote colleagues now miss hallway conversations and face growing isolation as office‑centric culture returns.
