- Direct Line Managers seem to only care about your career growth/interest at face value, during 1:1 calls or calls w/ Skip Line Managers. After, it is nonexistent. I've shared my career interest/growth several times, proposing different plans for the growth - which were agreed to, but never fully executed or supported.
- Your role becomes stagnant, very quickly. I have met other "Analyst" level employees who were with the company for 7-10 years and they just keep making lateral moves within the organization but remain as "Analyst", which brings me to my next point
- If you are not good at networking in a remote / COVID environment, stay far away from this place. It seems the only people who get promoted in this company are the boot lickers of the organization. I've worked with many very talented people (especially on the technical side) who did not have their contract extended, were not promoted, or were not retained - yet, people who do marginal work seem to always get by and land further career advancement opportunities just by having a plethora of coffee chats.
- The pay at this company is way below average, at this time (02/04), I have been interviewing outside of the firm and it seems that companies pay 30-50% (on average) more for folks with similar talents as mine and as the role I am in. Additionally, Toyota has changed their bonus structure to where they pay out the bonuses every quarter (e.g., you get 1/4th of your bonus at end of one quarter, 1/4th at the end of next quarter,... 1/4th at the end of the last quarter). Therefore, they are just paying slightly more for cost of living (COL/inflation) adjustments, but now you do not have any bonus in your compensation package.
- Toyota has benefits regarding lease program, family/medical, and other minor things that it tries to "make up" for the lack of compensation - however, if you are young and do not have children, this is not suitable because these "benefits" are not realized for you. In addition, while the medical/dental/vision seems attractive, there are now many companies outside of Toyota that offer comparable benefits, at higher salary point. I wanted to share this point because one of the reasons I joined Toyota initially was due to benefits/security, however, it is not the only option in this market.
- Toyota seems to want to push return to office environment, in spite of a lot of large companies now allowing permanent WFH (Facebook, Twitter, etc). This might be because of the super expensive office they purchased in Plano, TX HQ. However, in this case, it seems like there are many better opportunities outside that a) pay more and b) allow WFH
- Toyota projects are not very interesting, because of the size of the company, (and I have read this similar experience at Google, for example) you may be stuck working in a department/team that has very mundane work. So, the chance of you landing a position in a "sexy" department is .00001%.
- Management at the top are not receptive to change or listen/care about their employees feedback. Our group has a monthly touch base with leadership and even though employees bring up valid questions/points, the C-suite at the top typically deflects their question / changes topic in order to not place themselves in negative spotlight (hold themselves accountable)
As I am writing this message, i've learned that over a dozen employees have put in their notice, most likely due to one of the aforementioned reasons. If you have children and need the benefits and are okay with the above (especially putting your career on hold), then it's fine - otherwise, do yourself a favor and look elsewhere.
