Great salary, terrible politics, tons of work and worst managers - classic "golden cage" that is entering a downhill
Pros
- They pay higher than the market plus quarterly bonuses and shares (RSU) - so the money is great, thus it is the main reason to make you want to stay. - Technology keeps running forwards (sometimes too fast, which leads to poor output), so it is always interesting. - Most folks are above average on the technical side and OK on the personal side - Facilities are running from OK to old and lacking of maintenance - Nice gifts on holidays - Some tolerance for eccentric employee behavior, like strange cloths (mostly in Seattle) and alcohol at the cubic (sometimes this is negative)
Cons
- The company tries to run as lean as possible, which means every person is squeezed to the bone - being pushed to work overtime, night, weekends and holidays, just to meet unrealistic deadlines while trying to accomplish tons of work, which should be shared by more than one person. So, realistically, they pay to one person a 1.25 or 1.5 salary to do the work of two or almost two employees. - Although that, there are islands where there are folks who do very little, on the same role and salary level, but managers do not divert them to help the overloaded employees. They are the lucky ones. - Travel, even transatlantic, is always at the economic class, for almost all employee levels, except for the very top managers. - Most of the 1st and 2nd line managers are terrible. Appointed and promoted mostly by seniority rather than by being suitable to be managers. Simply try to run by the lean atmosphere and push the employees to meet deadlines, without really helping them achieve it or questioning how realistic are the targets. - Many veteran folks create just a few "close circle" groups that control the company and decide who's in and who's out, even if the employee is good - aiming to keep their regime. - Shortage of resources and tools (hardware and software) to accomplish your work, which also makes it hard to meet deadlines. - Low number of annual vacation days (to make you stay at work...) - Upper management doesn't really care about how things are doing below them. Only come to do the "showoff" presentations to the crowd, but don't wish to hear what is really happening on the "factory floor" thus not meeting with non-managers.
