Turned down Mews' Product Manager role after back-channel reference checks

The whole thing took about six weeks from the first message to a verbal offer, and on most measures it looked like a win. Eighteen applications into my search, six interview rounds with Mews, and a Senior Product Manager offer at €96k base plus equity for a fully remote role out of Amsterdam. On paper, exactly what I'd been aiming for. The interviews were polished. The hiring manager kept coming back to ownership, to giving PMs real authority over the roadmap, to moving fast without the usual enterprise drag. I left each round feeling energized. The equity conversation was straightforward, the base hit my number, and the remote setup meant I could stay put. I was close to signing without thinking much harder about it. Before I did, though, I spent a couple of evenings on LinkedIn cross-referencing people who'd held PM roles at Mews in the last two years. I found two former PMs and sent short, direct messages saying I had an offer and asking for fifteen minutes. Both replied within a day, which probably told me something on its own. What they said lined up too closely to wave off. The roadmap got rewritten roughly every six weeks, not because the market had moved but because senior leadership kept reversing decisions they'd ↓