Can all the reviews be wrong? Don't bet your career on it.
Pros
The best thing about Rain Bird is the quality of people hired. It is tough to get in, but very easy to be forced to leave.
Cons
Just read the rest of the reviews. The only input I can add is my review of the various areas of the company. President - proud to be an employee for over 50, yes I said 50, years. This should give you an indication of the appetite for change. Vice President - if you think you can outlast the President, the VP is next in line. He is the Pres with less personality. He reads his speeches off a Word document he created, word for word...Ron Burgundy? CFO - this guy would not be there if he had not married into the family. Probably the only one with job security. HR - Does not believe there is a culture problem, but a people problem. Bonus plans for HR managers are set up around improvements in Rain Bird online reviews. Then they are fired when the reviews do not change. Huh? Commercial/Golf - The controller products are woefully outdated and the main focus is fixing quality problems that do not exist…except in the mind of the owner. Consumer Products-- the definition of clueless. More flowers on packaging is innovation. Let's not develop more products, let's upgrade the packaging to try and show we know what we're doing. Contractor is the best of the worst. Controls - The product design and manufacturing are 10 years behind the technology curve. The Bird could not develop a new electronic product without 5 consultants. For some reason Quality and the Distribution Centers report through this division as well. Both are worse for it. Just ask about the warehouse move in Alabama if you want a horror story of ineffective leadership. In the wake are an incoherent electronic strategy and a pile of bodies that have been sacrificed to move this division backwards. Extrusion and manufacturing expect $10/hr temps in Alabama and Arizona to produce the same quality as $2.35/hr Mexican Nationals in Tijuana. Based on the last few years, it is hard to tell which option is worse. However it seems like both are crashing and are they more focused on eliminating vendors, because that is the biggest problem, right? Landscape Drip's success is at the mercy of extrusion. See above. The quality department doesn't understand statistics nor Six Sigma. All are tortured at a meeting called the Quality Council or "the Inquisition" about why quality levels and returns are not at Toyota levels. What you will not hear in the interview is that you do not have the ability to make a change that will positively affect product quality. You will be challenged about the validity of a solution because they know better. The entire manufacturing arm of the company implodes waiting on quality to make a decision. Ask anyone you talk to if a direct approval for anything other than budgets has ever been given.. Based on the review, I think you can infer the answer. There are a few areas like the Systems Group, the Test Lab and the Fun Committee. However, their contributions are not worth mentioning here. These are the groups that will determine your fate at the Bird. Don't say you were not warned.