ETC reviews

I recommend avoiding the R&D department here (and probably the company as a whole) unless you hear that there's been a big change in upper management. A group of incompetent middle managers ensure that every potential good decision gets bogged down in bureaucracy. Personal biases, FUD, NIH syndrome, nepotism and expert-beginnerism are everywhere. This is further exacerbated by "company lifer" senior engineers who decided to stop learning 15 years ago. A lot of lip service is paid to "innovation", while the aforementioned issues combined with a culture of austerity that comes from the very top of the company ensure that no risks are taken and no real innovation happens. The same culture of austerity also keeps salaries at insulting levels for the industry. The company is coasting on a stock of industry goodwill built by the founder and former CEO, but on the current trajectory, it's going to run out soon.

Not all of management is like this, honestly some are great, but watch out. There is a class of very nepotistic managers here that are technically completely unqualified but are basically tenured, part of the "family". They will work naive suckers into the ground that don't know any better or have too much to lose to say no. Also, it would be wise to leave any opinions or input at the door, cause if you get a manager like I describe, despite not having any experience in the fields they manage, they will insist they know best but will blame you when things go wrong regardless. I would advise you to only take a role here if you know it will be temporary or are somewhat senior and know the game, or you may be taken advantage of. I would highly advise against attempting to climb the ladder here, there is no amount of hard work that will earn you a seat past the nepotism.