Rain Bird is fundamentally strong, but it does need immediate attention to fix a broken wing.
Pros
Rain Bird is fundamentally a very good company but has gone down a path of poor upper management in recent years. It has a very successful history, is respected in the industry, and has strong international sales growth. It has achieved good market share across a wide range of diverse irrigation products, and has the systems in place and interest to maintain best product quality. They promote employee training in many quality and engineering tools, and other areas. They have good systems in place to insure build quality and that all defects are ranked and top opportunities are assigned resources to make improvements. Similar systems assess product concerns on field returned products, and engineers get directly involved with customer concerns. Professional staff enjoys good salary compensation and a goal oriented small bonus program. There are many very good and talented people at Rain Bird that you will enjoy as your peers.
Cons
I was a very, very long term employee and will say that I had a very challenging and rewarding career at Rain Bird. Short term frustrations more easily dissolve over time, and it is the good accomplishments and relationships that are remembered. A specific direct manager can make life heaven or hell at any company. However, over the past decade Rain Bird shifted to valuing paperwork degrees more than demonstrated experience. Management has become infused with pedigreed people from outside the industry that don't understand how to value their employees, and lead to directions that best serve our customers. Management has too many layers and every time information passes upwards it is more positive and more out of touch with what makes the factory run. This allows Tony and his staff, and Directors, to make bad decisions with middle managers too weak, inexperienced, and not trusted enough to defend what should be done. Unfortunately for the lower ranks, HR is dis-empowered in this system to where they can only carry out orders while referring to the policy manual. To Rain Bird's credit they have been placing very strong emphasis on cost reduction projects for several years. To their dis-credit, they have failed to realize when to shift the focus off of cost reduction and onto a better area such as quality improvements and NPD. They want it all, all the time. Demanding this level of cost reduction continually is demoralizing, ridiculous, infuses gaming of the system, and worst - is very risky to product quality. Cost reduction emphasis is better applied in cycles. These comments are not unique to Rain Bird. These struggles can be found at many other companies. It may even be a valid strategy in how to run a company, but it is not a good way. It has been sad though to see the shifting occurring within Rain Bird over the years. Mid-level managers used to be much better informed and empowered. Upper level management used to be less aggressive at driving product into lower manufacturing cost centers (Mexico and China). Rain Bird used to be a much more open, cohesive, and fun place to work.