Vulcan reviews

All decisions in the company are made either by Jody's team of attorneys and HR, or by Paul. Just think about that first group for a minute. These are people whose purpose in life is to ensure that Paul doesn't get sued. Oh yes, it's as free and creative as you might think! Now think about the second decisionmaker. Read about him and decide if you want him guidng your professional life. When I worked at Vulcan I felt more like a lifeless number than I have at exponentially larger companies. Even worse, I felt policed.

Abysmal morale. Engineers are rarely promoted or encouraged to self-organize. The manager to engineer ratio is incredibly large. Management is constantly churning and the new managers are brought in from the outside, never promoted up from within. Groups working in niche fields built up capabilities only to have their efforts redirected by whoever the latest manager was who had no domain expertise. Managers were brought in based on their credentials at the biggest tech companies but the strategies they learned there were inappropriate to the size, scope, and audience of Vulcan projects. Imagine a 2 person 6 month research project. Now bring in 3 managers who insist on making the prototype 'enterprise grade', halting progress. Be sure to berate the engineers on their way out. Projects managers focus more on reporting progress than progressing. I've never been at an organization which spends the amount of effort this one does to tell employees how great it is to work there. I wish I left sooner.