Ineffective management, long hours but very stable, good co-workers, lots of business
Pros
Employment for life culture, which is good and bad since poor performers get a free pass, including incompetent managers, but good since you have excellent stability which is hard to find in the automotive industry. Good benefits and average to slightly above-average pay, but if you're smart, you can negotiate higher pay prior to accepting offer. Lots of vacation and sick days if you can find time to use it all. Work hours can vary depending on manager, but for the most part, it's a free atmosphere. You can come and go as you please as long as your work is done. The bad part is, sometimes you can be heavily overloaded with work so you can never really get all your work done in a 40 hour week. Regular bonuses that are actually performance based...by performance, it means how many hours you put in, not at how efficient you are, regardless, they are constant which is a plus. Denso sales always manages to acquire lots of business somehow, so there will always be work for engineers to do. Co-workers are very good, nice, and helpful. Work can be interesting depending on which engineering department you work in, but sometimes it just feels like an onslaught of excel spreadsheets and over-reactions to simple engineering problems. For the most part, this is not a bad company to work for, but it's not great either. Stability is the main thing here and not many companies can offer what Denso offers as long as you can personally deal with the cons that come along with it.
Cons
Very conservative management that lacks foresight. The concept of promotion to your level of incompetence applies here. Not everyone is cut out to be a manager, but if you put in long hours and not cause any ripples in the water, then you'll move up the chain very quickly. Higher level management positions are all occupied by ex-pats. Japanese management always rotating, so there is no stability or accountability. Long hours and personal life scarifies are expected which are usually the result of poor management decisions and over conservative policies. Very old technology and equipment on campus (Lotus Notes 7, Win XP, Office 2003). Old chairs and desks. Creativity and ideas for improvement are ignored or suppressed unless you are Japanese or speak Japanese. Even some mid-level non-Japanese managers abide by this principle which is absurd. Many employees just go with the flow and collect a paycheck. Managers lack scope of improvements. They would rather keep doing the wrong things over and over instead of push to implement larger scope changes.
