Hunger Games environment - Senior Engineer Lumen Employee Review

1.0
Dec 31, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Remote work and the benefits are good

Cons

You've read about the layoffs. Those happen in a lot of companies. How they do it has screwed the enterprise. The people to be let go as part of the RIF is decided at the vice president level, not directors or managers...the VP who sorts the list of people by how much they are paid and they RIF the people at the top of the pay scale. The company hardly has any SME's left. Common practice for the only person who knows how a system works to get RIF'd. The company has more or less lobotomized itself. Ability to turn up new service and keep existing systems working has been gutted. Infrastructure is failing due to age. Many critical systems and platforms are 20 years old in many cases. When a platform is retired from being many years past end of life, it is replaced with used equipment that is also past end of life but not as much. Replacement parts are bought from ebay. New CEO is an improvement over the one that was fired a year ago, but her big changes has mostly been hiring on additional presidents and VPs. The company is very top-heavy. She's changing the culture of the company based off of a self help book called Dare to Lead. The obsession with this book and the lady who wrote it is approaching Kool Aid cult levels. They just restructured the companies debt. This was after the stock hit 80 cents a share. The creditor are going to end up owning what's left of the company in a couple years. The asset sale to Apollo wrecked the enterprise. All of the free cash flow came from the ILEC that they sold to them. If you take a job here get as much as you can when you start because you'll go years before seeing a raise, and what you get won't be a lot. They fired all of their recruiters a few years ago and turned it all over to "Hirevue" which is a data mining outfit that in order to even be considered for a job, you have to make a dozen tick-tock style videos for them and play some games. And they wonder why qualified people won't apply here.

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Lumen Response
2y
Thank you for leaving a review. We are disappointed to see your overall experience has not been positive. As a current employee, if you would like to discuss specific concerns, please contact us at CTLHRActionTeam@lumen.com.

Explore other reviews about Lumen

5.0
Apr 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Fully remote, good pay and benefits, flexible schedule, great work life balance

Cons

Changing industry landscape, affected by lay offs

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Lumen Response
2mo
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Because of feedback like yours, we get better every day. We're sorry to read that you have had negative experiences with the changing industry landscape due to layoffs. These decisions are difficult and not something we take lightly. Lumen understands the impacts these events have on our employees and provides support and guidance through the challenging transitions. We're glad to hear that you valued our agile working model, compensation practices, benefits, and work-life balance. We are committed to ensuring that we can all succeed together. Thank you again for your feedback. We truly wish you the best of luck!
2.0
May 13, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

work life balance, excellent time off so long as manager doesn’t micromanage/track and limit FTO, nice people, leadership has turned the business around.

Cons

No pay raises even with great performance review (5years with zero raise) No career growth/progression - been on a high-performing team for 5 years and not one person on the team has been progressed or promoted during that time. Little opportunity for career advancement and growth New jobs within the company are going to external hires, not much grwoth for current employees

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Lumen Response
3w
Thank you for your transparency about your experience. We want to hear from people like you to learn how we can do better. We are sorry to hear about your experience. Lumen is taking a proactive approach to pay equity and regularly conducts market reviews to ensure Lumen's pay is market competitive, positioning us at the forefront of compensation best practices. Your review will help us take any necessary action. We're glad you value work-life balance, our people, and leadership. Please reach out to us at CTLHRActionTeam@lumen.com if you would like to discuss anything further with your review. Thanks for being part of the team.
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