Pros
Excellent technical resources including highly knowledgeable people. Excellent IT department and support staff. The Quality Control department has some real teachers in it. They do achieve a reasonable work life balance for some of their employees.
Cons
Company meetings are little more than propaganda campaigns. There's a lot of talk about corporate vision but it is just talk. Little to nothing actually happens beyond wasting two hours of everyone's time. Projects tend to be formulaic which limits opportunities to stretch technical skills. Henderson does an incredible amount of Walmart work, which amounts to implementing a design prototype, not actually generating a design. Walmart work does not develop engineering skill but is extremely valuable to the company both in terms of profitability and in terms of helping it weather recessions. The result is that the people responsible for generating a large portion of the company's revenue are the least respected, least technically savvy, least likely to be advanced and most expendable. They also are the least desirable employees for every other team in the company giving them the least opportunity to change tracks internally. Henderson does not pay well. Leaving Henderson netted me a pay increase of nearly $15,000. When I researched pay while working there I found I was underpaid by between $10,000 and $20,000. When I spoke to management about this I was told that they thought we were adequately paid. Showing them a job offer I had received (a $9,000 increase over my then current salary) did not change anything. They do not pay well and they know it. They will also lie about what people should be paid and attempt to convince their employees that $10,000 below the industry average is reasonable. There is no transparency on how bonuses are calculated. On the two teams I worked on, both said that overtime was factored into how bonuses were calculated but, strangely, my two best bonus were in years when I worked the least overtime. Henderson makes a point of holding Beer-30s almost weekly, regular feel-good e-mails, having an in-office ping-pong tournament, annual golf tournament and other fun events to build company spirit. All of these exist to keep employees just happy enough to overlook the low pay. Overtime is encouraged but it also does not bear fruit beyond the paycheck. Overtime is not a path to advancement here. Advancement comes more from learning and knowing than from working longer hours. To that end, the best thing an employee can do to advance is get assigned to projects that stretch their technical skills. Rapid advancement comes from having friends in high places. Henderson is intensely political. Who you know, who likes you and their position in the firm is far more important than how good you are at the job. This was explicitly explained to me by one of my bosses. It was also not lost on me that so many people are promoted to owner by one particular Senior Vice President. Simply being very good at your job is not enough to get ahead. You must also be well liked by a number of other highly political people who are well liked by the person who promotes you. These people may be quite unlikable themselves. Management plays favorites. I worked on both a Walmart team and a non-Walmart team. On both teams there were clear favorites but on the non-Walmart team it was extremely evident. Who is and is not a favorite is not determined by skill, knowledge, experience or any objective measure. Instead it is based more on aesthetics - extremely good looking people with a modicum of technical skill become favorites. On three occasions I saw a person with 1.5 years of experience placed in a project management role where they managed people with 5-10 years of experience. In each of these three instances the inexperienced new project manager was exceptionally attractive. On multiple occasions I saw brilliant engineers with 5-10 years of experience passed over for valuable roles due to a preference for the more attractive but less experienced candidate.
