Pros
It's difficult for a former employee to objectively evaluate a company but I will do my best. I can only comment on that which I have direct experience which is the firmware and the hardware. Apcon hardware is the best in the business with manufacturing defects in the parts per million that can be counted on one hand. The hardware never breaks, it’s solid-state, American made quality. There are also some very well maintained pieces of software, specifically any software that is not micro managed by the hardware managers. The desktop apps and mobile apps are well made and the efforts of those teams deserve commendation. There is some absurdity on glassdoor about bullying from some butt hurt walking lawsuit but it deserves no further comment. There is also an excess of comments about the CEO which seemed to be mass hysteria. I had limited interaction with Richard but they were all pleasant, he seemed reasonable and measured. The negative comments come from Oregonians who have a reputation for suing everyone that looks at them the wrong way, so take it with a grain of salt.
Cons
The firmware, is one of the most poorly written and maintained cluster kludges that I have witnessed in 20+ years. It is my observation that Apcon has made a series of predictable mistakes and lacks the experienced leadership in proper software development to correct course. The firmware department is heavily managed by hardware engineers and they make the sophomoric mistakes that even junior software engineers avoid. It is because of their lack of meddling in Apcon’s other software offerings that those projects have a measure of success. Apcon hires two types of firmware engineers; fossils and interns. The fossils haven’t learned anything new since the 70s and the interns learn from the fossils. So, though there is occasional fresh DNA in the gene pool, it is quickly corrupted and bad practices are replicated. The behemoth of firmware spaghetti code looks like it was written in anger by a masochist who picked up C programming as a therapeutic substitute to cutting himself with a razor blade. It’s the effect of hardware engineers mascaraed as software engineers so you get things like zero code coverage analysis, zero static analysis, zero dynamic analysis, free-for-all source control and technical debit measured in decades and man-years. The bulk of the firmware dinosaurs don't even use debuggers, I know, its 2003 and we've had debuggers for 15 years so it's excusable. What? It's 2016?! Sorry, there's no excuse and that's unacceptable in any modern environment. Working smart is no substitute for working hard at Apcon. Since the hardware managers have no concept of a well run software project, it is preferable to furiously run in-place because it’s a demonstrable exertion of energy rather than meticulously correcting course. I had this conversation with managers several times and it was expressed that it’s preferable to run cross country than fix the flat tire and drive. Management's "fix" is to throw more bodies at the problem like 9 women can make a baby in a month. There are a handful of good engineers in the firmware department but they practice Mortgage Driven Development, keep their heads down and milk the decrepit cow. Apcon is a good place for people who stopped learning in the 80s and have no interest in expressing their creativity. It is also a good place for people who like to work really, really hard. If working smart is your preference then Apcon is not a good fit. If you have learned from any of the advancements in software engineering this century or think outside the box then Apcon is probably not a good fit.
