This sounds awful, but to what extent does a mediocre yet functioning engineering org affect the company's bottom line? Does the bar having been set low actually matter?
I believe management when they say the company is still profitable, but I'm sure the bottom line could have been 20x or more in the short term if we didn't increase the headcount at all. And I don't see how the bottom line would improve in the long term as we're really slow in shipping new features, not to talk about new products. Maybe it would be better if our competitors start innovating and taking some of our market share.