Pros
Great place to start your career or come in as a project manager as you get to work on specialized problems on diverse subject matters with a group of highly technical engineers. Majority of engineers work on DoD projects. There is a small motorsports group that does exciting work as well. The work is unique, challenging, demanding and rewarding on its own. There is a lot of opportunity to develop applications, solutions and proprietary tools in a collaborative environment. Good work-life balance. Colleagues are helpful and personable. The company has a small business feel to it as it should. There is an effort to develop comraderies through after-work meets. Benefits are good and they do make a strong effort to keep insurance costs down for employees. Feedback is being sought but not sure if it's listened to. SBIR program is driving collaboration and provides opportunity for individuals to get involved in business development and have more skin in the game. CEO has had good foresight to understand the needs of the industry and grow the company. Corvid was recently awarded a job development grant by the state so we can expect a lot of growth. Company culture is relaxed, open door, employees have purpose and do feel empowered. CFO is filling leadership gaps and facilitating decision making.
Cons
CEOs lack of vision for leadership - The brilliant people who constantly churn innovative solutions are the companies strategic advantage and they need to be nurtured. The CEO has not made it a priority to have this message trickle down the chain. There continues to be rapid growth without the necessary leadership structure in place. Mediocre management at best - most of the managers have little to no real project management or people management skills. This starts to matter over time. Managers are constantly putting out fires, leaving little thought to actually leading and managing the people and projects under them. Lack of training – Little to no investment in training managers on how to do their job or employees to further their skills. Trust is an issue - A few senior managers do not seem to have their direct reports best interests in mind and from many accounts have thrown them under the bus. Decision making is not inclusive and personally I think people do not feel free to speak their mind. Corvid runs lean – great for the business but the problem starts with managers being overloaded. Even if they wanted to do right by their people they simply do not have the time to do so. No career path - Corvid relies on young, straight out of grad school work force for day-to-day work. It's all great till you get to mid-level career and realize that you like the work but there is much to be desired from the aspect of personal growth and professional development. After 3-5 years you realize that there is not only no career path at Corvid but also that it's difficult to jump ship in the area given the specialized nature of the work and lack of professional development. Performance reviews are an after-thought - Managers don't know the basics of conducting performance reviews and use no metrics. There is no 1yr plan let alone a 5 year plan in anyone's mind. The reviews have been laughable overall. No critical feedback whatsoever and no goal setting. Little transparency regarding salary/bonus - No opportunity to negotiate salary at year end. You just find out what you are going to get. Bonus sharing is based on company performance but there are bonus pools based on work groups and finally it's up to your direct manager to decide what you get. Given non-metric performance reviews and non-existent short-term/long term goals, it comes down to your managers perception of how useful you were to him/her. If you are not loud and constantly talking about the work you did, chances are you will be ignored as a low performer. No exit interview policy- we don't seem to care why people are leaving so we can employ talent retention strategies.