DEKA Research and Development reviews

Dean Kamen: Egotistical. Narcissist. These are the words that come to mind. The hallway to his office is lined with pictures and articles - not about the company - but glorifying him. One painting depicts him as Leonardo da Vinci. And no person with a shred of modesty would permit the "December Thing", a project where employees volunteer their time to craft what can only be described as a technological offering to him. (Marriages have broken apart because of employees' devotion to this tribute.) Process: The product development process is antiquated. No company worth their salt ignores producibility these days, yet DEKA's products are so thorny to produce their cost is vastly inflated unnecessarily. Ethics: DEKA's business model centers around billable hours. Activity is churned and decisions made not for the best product launched the fastest, but to bilk the customer for more hours. Additionally, the near-mandatory casual OT gives yet more billable hours to the company the employees essentially donating their time for Dean Kamen's profit. Culture: Venomous. Managers behave like feudal overlords, exercising their power to force people to work more and more hours. People are chewed out in front of their peers, which is as unprofessional as it gets. And new employees are given an anvil and tossed into the deep end of their work with no onboarding process whatsoever. Compensation: Substandard. Even with NH's lower cost of living and tax advantages, DEKA pays on the low side, clearly thinking that the prestige of working there will put food on your table.

Expect understaffed projects. Expect unreasonable deadlines. Expect low pay. Expect to be pushed to constantly give more and more overtime. Expect to be treated like property. Expect to be disappointed that you're not working on some awesome new technology or gizmo that you saw on YouTube. Expect special disdain to be reserved for software developers. Expect angry, unprofessional, emotionally unstable leadership. Expect to be publicly dressed down or otherwise degraded by your leadership when their unreasonable expectations aren't met. Expect that your talented friends will get tired of this and leave for a less abusive environment.