Pros
• There have large cash reserves. • They are investing in young smart minds. • Get to collaborate with global teams of engineers • Their culture is far better than most. • They require teams have outings several times a year to relax and get to know everyone better • They encourage people to speak out. • They reward hard work and try to recognize it. • Ping pong & Frisbee–is big here • Parent friendly – at the day to day level • Profit sharing – in the good years • They are transparent as to the project and current financial / market direction, with quarterly meetings and annual meeting - with guidelines of publicly traded company. • They try to have a social event once a month at 5 with food and beer. • They are embracing Agile
Cons
• You must work hard, can be hard if you have kids (but again the reward is good.) • They are on the front line of the economic curve - first to feel the pain (but they are some of the first to shine when the economy turns up) • They have an ask the president meeting a couple of times a year, but many of the answers are old school conservative patronizing corporate answers. • You must be a self-starter - they throw you in and you better learn to swim darn quick... if you get past that you will thrive. • They do not buy into the global citizen–not even the concept of think globally act locally.–no recycling / environmentally friendly products in coffee rooms or cafeteria, no green initiative. No program to volunteer in the community, or to match donations to charities. They donate some funds, but they limit it. • While they love to support Ping pong, Frisbee, and weight watchers they do little to encourage other groups, be it sports, music, exercise, tech, or civic-minded groups. • They don’t get their engineer out into the field to "see and breath" the customers' current (and future) successes, challenges and pains. • Middle management often can be consumed by KPI's and not focus career development, communications between teams, burnout, etc. Noy their fault.