Pros
On the forefront of telecommunications advancements, shaping and supporting the face of the Industry. Incredibly sharp and often brilliant developers. Beautiful facility, challenging and meaningful work with many chances to directly interface and support end users! Awesome benefits, and wonderful people. Tons of room for advancement! Adtran is one of the few companies I know that not only pays for you to go back to school to further your degree, but will also immediately promote you once you achieve that degree. There is a plethora of opportunity for advancement, but it is on you. If you hire in with a BS, go back to school to get your Masters (and Adtran pays for school!), and you get immediately promoted to a Masters, or even PhD. Hire in to Manufacturing with an AS? Go back to school, get your BS, and Engineering awaits. I’ve even known people to hire into Engineering, get a degree in a different field such as Business or Sales, and get promoted to that position. Product development comes in cycles, and each time a new product emerges, there are tons of opportunities for anyone to take a leadership role in that development. Every couple of quarters, the product and challenges change or expand thus keeping the challenge fresh and interesting. Further, over time, I’ve personally seen many employees get promoted into managerial positions. But let’s be real about something, there are only X amount of managerial positions, and Managers tend to keep their jobs. No company can promote every employee to Management. Not possible. But ANY employee can further their education, at Adtran’s expense, and immediately be promoted based on their achievements. And this doesn’t apply to just scholastic degrees! Adtran also pays for and encourages application specific training and certification (CCNA, etc) and rewards you for that.
Cons
Product management tends to have their heads in the clouds making promises to customers that aren't realistic.
