Costco Wholesale reviews

No telecommuting (but there is on-call work that you'll have to do from home). Schedules are not flexible (e.g. 4x10, 9x80, flextime, etc). Compensation for salaried IT staff is subpar, no bonuses unless you're a manager or above. No raises for promotions unless you're making less than the minimum for your new position -- and even then it's not automatic. 3% raises every year no matter how hard you work. Architectural decisions in IT are made in a vacuum (mostly by people who have recently moved to IT from elsewhere within Costco... e.g. from real estate or the bakery) At a recent Employee Engagement meeting where they discussed the 40% approval rating of management in IT, a VP recently discussed how 80% of respondents entered in a 'tell us the top thing that the CIO ought to change" questionnaire was compensation, and #2 was telecommuting (which Costco does not allow). However, senior management chose to ignore the top two responses to the CIO and instead focus on #3, "Communication", citing the reason for not addressing compensation as "We don''t want to hire Google- or Amazon-level employees. We're a retail business." Additionally, nobody in IT understands Requirements-Gathering, and the 'solution architecture' group offers cookie-cutter, created-in-a-vacuum advice that anybody inoob n their 2nd year of IT at an IT-centric company could give in their sleep. Most folks who actually belong in IT leave after 2-3 years, leaving IT full of people who prefer to coast, who don't really belong in IT, or recent hires from out-of-state who have to figure out how to pay off their relocation package or else wait 2 years until it expires and they can find something new. Most IT folks that have been around more than 5 years have been "Costco-ized" and had their drive beaten out of them; the only thing they work hard at is making sure that they don't have to do any real work.

My comments reflect only my experience in Costco's IT department. - seniority based culture rather than a meritocracy, similar to working in a union - on some teams, some people are overworked while others leave early all the time and do little work - only 2 weeks vacation to start until 5 years, non-negotiable - no stock options or bonuses for IT employees - salaries and raises are lower than average, we lost many potential good hires to that - very low 401k match and few perks until more seniority is reached - full telecommuting schedules are not permitted and it is generally frowned upon even on an ad hoc basis - very slow, bureaucratic environment - 10k maximum relocation allowance for non-management employees which might be tough for bigger moves/families - there are a lot of old technology (AS/400 and RPG) IT employees who know nothing else and are modern technology illiterate - there are a lot of people who started in warehouses who are now in IT and have little/no formal IT training or outside experience - lots of bad decisions about software packages and putting everything in the cloud - lots of projects languish past their due date or are cancelled and/or restarted halfway through - if the warehouse workers knew about the waste going on in the home office they would riot, since they work hard - lots of managers who should not be in leadership positions - senior employees/management are very resistant to change - the executive management is not rallying the troops and morale is very low in most groups