Where Incompetence is Rewarded and Talent Flees - werkgeversreview Senior Information Security Consultant bij Pen Test Partners

Before I begin, I want to be frank; from my experience here over the last 4 years, any conversations had rarely lead to meaningful change here. That makes this review, honestly, a bit of a waste of everyone’s time, including my own. I’m still choosing to provide this feedback because, in principle, it should matter, even if I suspect it won’t. If I can deter one potential candidate from making a huge mistake in joining PTP, this review was worth the time. I’m genuinely grateful for what I’ve learned here and for some of the people I’ve worked with, there’s a lot of talent within the company. My feedback isn’t emotional; it’s intended to be constructive, though perhaps a little uncomfortable, because I think the company has lost sight of what made it good. One of the company’s key values has been transparency, yet the reality doesn’t align. Transparency is clearly treated as an aspirational value rather than an operational one. Information is selectively shared, decisions are made behind closed doors, and when those decisions go wrong, the narrative is quietly rewritten. It’s reached a point where it feels more like politics than leadership, and people notice. When a company starts saying one thing and doing another, trust disappears very quickly. It’s impressive how quickly the company can find money once someone points out it’s needed. A company discovering it’s run out of money is something I’d expect from a start-up with no financial oversight, not one with a CFO and a leadership team claiming rigour and experience. It was extraordinary to see people made redundant one week and invited back the next. It suggested a complete lack of situational awareness at senior level, which eroded confidence across the business. I think that’s when most of us realised that the leadership team isn’t as qualified as it claims to be. The redundancies also revealed something else: a lack of understanding about where the real value sits in the business. The people let go weren’t peripheral, they were foundational. Losing them exposed how fragile the company’s knowledge base has become. The problem isn’t that people leave; it’s that nobody seems to understand what they did until they’re gone. The sales team has struggled to perform effectively for some time. Most of the talented, high-performing individuals have already left, leaving a group that frequently chases new frameworks or trends without mastering the company’s core offerings. Mistakes in statements of work and proposals are common, which undermines credibility with clients. Many clients prefer to speak directly with consultants rather than sales because they perceive sales as unable to provide value or accurate information. The combination of these issues contributes directly to insufficient revenue generation and reinforces a perception of incompetence at this level of the business. It’s difficult to maintain a culture of accountability when the leadership team is largely composed of friends of Ken. That dynamic makes constructive challenge impossible. In most professional environments, leadership is a position earned through competence, not friendship. Here, it feels reversed. Ultimately, I'd like to hope that this company could still recover its integrity but only if it becomes brave enough to look inwards, question its own leadership, and actually live the values it preaches. Until then, the culture will continue to drift, and the best people will continue to leave. I’m moving on because I need to work somewhere that’s led by principles, not optics. Ultimately, I’m aware that feedback and Glassdoor reviews at PTP tend to generate reports that go unread and feedback that goes unacted upon. So while I’m writing this, I don’t expect it to lead to change, which makes it all the more telling about the company’s approach to culture, leadership, and accountability.