Cardinal Peak Sr. Software Engineer reviews

Contract engineering (as a whole, not just this company) means that you don't really have ownership of products and you often do not get to see a project through beyond the design phase.

What they don't make clear during hiring is that Cardinal Peak's product is you (the engineer), and absolutely nothing else. Your job isn't to produce software, it is to produce billable hours. So long as the customer doesn't complain about the work product or the time it takes, well, let's just say everyone has a story about a certain SVP making "hah hah just kidding" comments about running up the bill for certain customers who can afford it. They've got huge jars of candy right by the front door, that are kept well stocked. As though easy access to a bunch of sugar is something you want in a largely sedentary job. They'll tell you the work is interesting and how they do cool things. A couple of guys are doing interesting, occasionally cool things. Everyone else is grinding out mobile apps and programming microcontrollers for the same sort of hardware over and over. A career ladder was introduced earlier this year, with junior engineer positions, and staff engineer positions above "senior" (smack in the middle, with 95% of the engineers at that level). The only sign that management remembers the ladder exists is that they've started hiring junior engineers to put at the bottom of the ladder.