Pros
Interesting projects. Potential for contribution to sustainable energy.
Cons
I have to agree with the recent negative reviews here. It’s been sad the last few months to see Fraunhofer CSE trending down instead of up. When the place is developing sustainable energy technologies, it shouldn’t be that hard to create a productive and rewarding work environment and many people arrive motivated and eager to contribute. However, senior management appears short on training, instincts, or even experience in management; and it shows. Execution is weak and there’s no accountability from management when goals are not met: the technical people are supposed to pick up the slack. There’s a sense of entitlement: management seems to expect funding to continue regardless of whether they actually work for it, or ever deliver as promised. Work groups are sometimes played off against each other and forced to compete for resources. Moral has, not surprisingly, gone down: something like a quarter of the staff have either left or been fired in the last year. This situation is abetted by lack of oversight from the parent organization (Fraunhofer USA). With the headquarters in Michigan and a president in Germany, the parent organization is just “phoning it in”. Some attempts by departing staff to flag the issues have been made, but were apparently shrugged off in favor of defending the status quo. I’ve heard that Fraunhofer centers have a great reputation in Europe, but it’s easy to see why that isn’t translating to success over here.
