Coasting on the success of trucks from 20 years ago
Pros
You could show up and sleep off the days until retirement Expectations are low because the Tech Center is not actually responsible for any projects, which results in a good work/life balance The company has always managed to convince investors that they're making money, so you can be assured your paycheck will always clear There are a lot of really knowledgeable friendly engineers and a couple of outstanding managers Great area to live in, and decent team spirit between lower employees because everyone is miserable together and has many of the same complaints
Cons
Tech Center management is never able to say no to crackpot 'innovations' from Daf Tech Center only exists as data collection hub for Daf, the less technical input you have to the functions the better Never any opportunity to do things the right way, only the DAF way. As a result PTC ends up being responsible when dead end Daf projects inevitably fail on North American trucks Customer always comes last after management plays politics in order to ensure their own bonus checks are maintained by misrepresenting project status and dreaming up positive metrics Worker to manager ratio is around 2-to-1 Benchmarking activities exist only to delude senior management as to the superiority of paccar products Daf continuously removes access to failure reporting systems to ensure their metrics are kept positive, and failures go ignored or unreported development is pulled from one shiny thing to the next as chairman spots various things on competitor vehicles that paccar doesn't offer (and there are many) - team is then given 1/10 the time required to properly develop the feature Management team never met a deadline they couldn't shorten to absurdity Bottom line, don't work here if you're looking to innovate or break new technical ground, or are interested in pursuing a career outside of management or accounting