Most of the company's employees, outside of the "executive team," are very demoralized. HR generally contributes this to a few disgruntled employees, but I'm really not exaggerating when I say almost all the regular employees there feel: overworked, treated poorly by upper management, are regularly in the dark about company management (company direction, decisions, etc), and almost always feel like they could be replaced/fired. The pay seems ok, but again, for how stressful it is to work there, it actually seems like it should be more.
One of the biggest issues is that ever since the company laid-off nearly half of their staff in the mid-2000s, they brought in a new management team to make the company more profitable. This is understandable obviously, but the large disparity between the upper management and the employees continue to this day. The executives act like they run a billion dollar company, but never take advantage of the small-company feel they could use (since there are only about 200 employees total). As a result, the communication is very poor, people get laid off for minor offenses. The company is extremely frugal with even like an extra $50 or $100 here for equipment. However, the upper management enjoy all the paid for company perks they don't share with everyone below. As a result, many engineers experience the depressing reality that they can't get money to fund their work, while there does seem to be extra money laying around. The Niagara Falls hanger definitely seems to be the priority as the facilities, atmosphere, and funding appear to be better than the transportation testing department. Transportation engineers and assistant engineers consistently work 55 hour weeks due to the small staff and over demand (again, generated by the upper managements frugality).
Bottom line: this company seems like a bank account for the owner and the execs. Take a job here if you really need one and start looking for an upgrade while you're working there.
