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General Motors (GM)

Engaged Employer

Mediocre, Mediocre, Mediocre. - Software Developer General Motors (GM) Employee Review

3.0
Mar 2, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Great benefits - Often fairly relaxed - Most coworkers are fairly nice - Looks great on your resume

Cons

- GM has a culture of mediocrity that seeps through in everything it does. I've met a few sharp colleagues here; but I've met just as many who are barely capable of using a computer, much-less performing their job. - The people in tech leadership positions often tend to be more incompetent than the grunts, and this can lead to drama and politics. - The business is Waterfall, and the Agile practices followed by developers are purely ceremonial. - No amount of extra effort will ever get you recognized -- if anything, it will get you in trouble. It doesn't matter that you've worked far more hours and far more efficiently than many of your coworkers; you look the same to the company as the guy who works 6 hours a day, overestimates his tasks, and lies on his timesheets. - Overperforming makes you a threat, and *will* be met with retribution. Do not depend on the "no-retaliation" policy. - If you don't lie on metrics, you will be crushed by those that do. - Outdated tech stack. - Incompetent, infuriating UX teams. - Incompetent, infuriating business. - Incompetent facilities. - Incompetent, political management. - Uncompetitive base pay. - Teams are completely, irrevocably siloed. - Awareline is a joke. - Incompetent leaders are transferred instead of fired. - If you're a senior developer, you'll probably be the first to go when there's a layoff. - Things happen at a glacial pace. This is just the nature of a large company like GM. - The company is all talk and no action.

Explore other reviews about General Motors (GM)

5.0
Mar 30, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Very Interesting Work Environment, and very complex machinery at play with employees possessing a wealth of information

Cons

Difficult to integrate yourself into the workflow. Meaningful work is often hard to take ownership of as it's high risk and siloed, or can not afford to be delayed.

2.0
Jul 16, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I was able to learn some interesting things in robotics, computer vision, etc. These jobs can be hard to come by, so it was a nice entry point. Plenty of chances to prove your worth, considering the incompetence of some of the managers and leads (but dont expect to be paid for the effort, you gotta show the effort first and you *might* get an early promotion)

Cons

Layoffs are frequent and nonsensical. Absolutely no warning that it will happen, you just wake up one day with the meeting on your calendar. Pay is OK. After being laid off late May, I found a job in a month or two that paid more (150k base -> 180k base) The things I learned were almost entirely self taught. Leads and management provided zero structure. They didnt use jira at all. They didnt write up business requirements for projects. Leads didnt create technical requirements. Milestones were vague. Everything was completely unorganized due to the inexperience of upper management and engineering leadership.

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