[raviojha]

Quite common in early-stage startups, 2-5 people including founders. As soon as the MVP is ready (first 3-6 months usually), they start around organizing things and prioritize stability, robustness over speed of delivery.

If the early engineers were experienced guys, a basic test suite and deployment pipeline would have been the first priority at the onset. It makes releasing frequent commits a breeze. Or else, they learn from subsequent hires to organize code, write tests and add extra processes. If they fail to hire such talent, they learn the hard way, frequent downtimes leading to user frustration and failing to retain them. It's crucial they realize this early on though, otherwise, this could lead to things blowing up pretty quickly leading to the death of the product.

Although I'd say, it sounds unusual for an investment bank. Doesn't sound like a company anyone would stick around for long. Sounds like inexperienced engineering leadership. If you're early in your career, I'd suggest looking for better companies.