There are so many ant-patters going on for a software company. We are on a code shipping freeze because the company is worried something will break... What? The code base is already 20 years behind the times, we want to wait 3 more months before we can update anything? Do you know how many problems we will have merging 3 months of code? The upper management knows *nothing* about software development
Dwindling benefits, time off is laughable, few in-house amenities. The company tries to sell itself as a hip up to date software company, but comes off like your grandpa trying to wear his hat backwards and ride a skateboard, throwing the skateboard out from under him and breaking his hip. The metaphor means that once you are hired by CDK you realize that they are all talk and no action.
The pay is fairly competitive in Portland (for engineers) but the benefits are way behind. In the end you will probably make more money after benefits at most other software companies.
The C names, Presidents, and board of directors are all crummy corrupt rich people. They play games with their staff, take away a benefit and see how loudly we scream. After taking away 5 benefits they will bring back the 1 cheapest benefit they can spare, only to try to take it away again or really only bring back the benefit half way. They are cutting costs and staff and space (A billion dollar company can spare 1 floor of a small building to have a nice entry way and an actual dining hall). The Portland location now has less than half the original space, and many teams are on top of one another, not to mention we all eat at our desk because there are like 10 spaces in the lunch room (or rather lunch hallway that was modified as a lunch room, that sits directly outside 3 meeting rooms...). The higher ups listen in a facade fashion, pretending to listen then doing whatever they can to save a buck and pay themselves huge dividends. The stock price is all that matters, and in the end the regular people buying cars are the ones that have to sit through a terrible workflow because CDK won't let us ship software. This company is going nowhere fast and everyone knows it. The best of the best have already left by choice, many of whom are left were hopeful but probably looking for work anyway.
CDK owns there market and they know it, without real competition they will continue to get worse.
