I really can't stress enough how much of a trainwreck this company is. It shocked me, and I am not easily shocked. A few examples that I can think of:
• Edgewater (POC HQ) is in the middle of nowhere in Norwood, literally in the woods in the middle of suburbia, far from actual Boston
• Endless micromanagement and nit-picking over minutiae by legions of controllers, CFOs, auditors and project managers
• Culture of 100+ slide PowerPoint decks and a constant press to manually churn out revisions to slides that nobody will look at and you never get feedback from
• Truly awful, broken, inconsistent data systems. By far the worst I have ever seen in my career. A complete and utter train wreck – Cannot be over-emphasized!
• Snail’s pace product development, yet lots of mandatory meeting to discuss non-existent progress and status updates, with “meeting minutes” demanded despite nothing of value being discussed
• Frustrating FDA regulated environment and boring, old “technology” products from decades ago, which mostly just revolve around repackaging and re-branding
• Obvious culture of stability, mediocrity and complacency instead of growth and innovation
• Huge population of 20-30+ year employees “just trying to hang on” to retirement – Always a huge red flag!
• Endless politics and blame game wars between departments
• Intentional silos and culture of extreme secrecy for literally everything
• Heavy top down direction, yet somehow without the efficiency that this centralized control should bring
• Extreme turnover in POC Finance – CFO is to blame and everyone (including HR) knows it, but no action is ever taken to correct the root cause
• Confused organizational structure – Lots of “dotted line” reporting to on-site executives who try to control you, while actually reporting to managers that sit at a different site, and receiving conflicting directions from your various “bosses”
• Work is generally non-value added, as it will just be over-written with next week’s rework / churn, or will result in PowerPoint slides that have no audience
• Siemens actively uses cheap tricks to “take hostages” and force employees stay with them –Relocation from Europe is commonly weaponized with expensive relocation packages that would have to be repaid – Greencards are dangled in front of these people like carrots and then the process is delayed indefinitely - 401k match has a multi-year vesting period, among other examples … when I left, the CFO remarked that “people from the outside never stay”, and that relocation of additional hostages from Europe was a better way to fill their vacant positions.
• Constant alarmism - the company has an insane profit margin and scale, yet nobody is happy and even a small miss from forecast is treated as if the sky is falling
• A comical “cost savings” measure tracking system that is a complete fabrication yet is taken incredibly seriously with no sense of irony by controllers and managers
• Zero motivation to do anything more than the bare minimum – A depressing place to work!
• Non-collaborative, known problem employees are protected and emboldened by the CFO, instead of being developed or worked out of the company
If you have any other alternative employer (and in Boston, you certainly do!), there is absolutely no reason to consider working here!
