Project Lead The Way reviews

Several people I know have applied to jobs here and I’ve told them to run away as fast as possible. There has been a mass exodus of employees the past few years, including managers, directors, and senior leadership. The place is a lost cause. Every department has serious issues, no matter which team you’re on, but I am personally aware of all the flaws within Marketing and IT specifically. They will pay you a lot and give you an inflated title (that will mean literally nothing), but they won’t give you any trust, respect, or responsibility. It’s an absolutely miserable work environment and not a single soul wants to be there, so even the high pay and great benefits won’t be enough to keep you around very long. I only lasted six months before I quit my “senior” position - it was very much entry-level, menial work with no room for growth, within the dreariest of all work environments. I could go on for days about how toxic PLTW is. If you’re reading this, consider yourself warned.

Business as a whole should respect that Agile does not mean "fast," nor does it mean "do what we're told without question." Major decisions are sometimes announced in quarterly all-staff meetings with the teams relevant to these decisions having no idea. The company has a good mission, but it doesn't always feel that they practice what they preach. From a dev standpoint, the scrum team needs their business analysts to truly be product owners and have the clout that comes with it. There are no designers here, nor much desire for UX/UI/front-end-only engineers whose passion is developing tools that not only work, but that people also enjoy using. A successful software engineer here will be the unicorn who loves database administration, deployments, and design. Some teams (and their leadership!) view the scrum team as a necessary evil, a means to an end (Some New Feature) rather than partners. Engineers and computer scientists are the future we encourage in our kids, so why are the tech teams at PLTW often treated as burdens? There's also a micromanagement problem here. I observed many times where adults were not being treated as adults. Giving us greater flexibility can also encourage greater productivity in the end. Somewhat related, it would be great if the business casual/formal (depending on team) dress code didn't exist. Since most of us weren't meeting with clients, I didn't see a need for that. We can still dress professionally but also wear jeans. I feel that many, or even most, issues here come from the top down (as mentioned in previous reviews by others), and that means negativity can trickle into teams that would otherwise be effective and passionate about their roles at PLTW.