Cubic reviews

For the technical person who's been there awhile, you'll get small raises, and work on LOTS of legacy systems. CTS has been putting in systems for over 30 years, and if you've been there awhile, you'll get to work on some of these that were cutting edge-- 10 to 20 years ago. Most new proposals are done as "This is the same as [insert previous project]!" and budgeted accordingly. No time is given to doing in depth estimates beforehand. Customers demand all-inclusive fixed-price bids, so when the work actually comes in the door, you're almost guaranteed to lose money. I've worked on a number of projects where it was sold at a loss-- so we're told-- "come up with some cost savings, we're 5 million in the hole!"-- and we hear this in the kickoff meeting! PM's are encouraged to save money, often at the expense of the company. If there's a way to come up with a bubblegum and baling wire design that'll only work this one time, they'll do it. And then it'll be sold to another project with no additional engineering time, guaranteeing problems for the next project.

It often seems that decision makers seem to get stuck on old ideas and business practices, it is hard to convince management to try new things. At the same time decisions are made by management against the advice of experienced workers, and these decisions often prove costly.