The entire engineering division has become an after thought. All new ideas and innovation can only come from the outside or paid consultants. Engineering isn't allowed to solve or think about problems Whisker wants to solve for pet parents. The only thing the engineer team does is work on changes that have no basis in fact or data from leadership. As well as go over designs from a consultant, but aren't allowed to give any feedback on its plausibility or manufacturability.
From the software side of a consumer product development, there is no ownership, direction, or roadmap. It's multiple silo'd teams that work independently and leadership gets surprised when deadlines aren't met and solutions don't function as intended.
Bringing up issues or trying to have constructive criticism immediately gets you labeled as "too negative", once this happens you will no longer have any say or power to make the products better.
As for management, there is none. It's a wired mix of VPs and Directors that are incapable of leading their respective teams or adequately communicate. Either from work overload,carrying about their own interests, or being overstepped by people above them. Teams never know what each other are doing or the current state of the whole product. While an attempt to bring PMs on board was made, they joined the team with no position or goals in mind. They were forced to kind of make themselves a place that didn't solve any of the managerial problems. As well as multiple PMs were not given any resources to work on their projects. Management only cares about aspects that they can show off to leadership. All the other important stuff in between is left for the few remaining engineers that still care. If you belong in that group prepare to be thrown under the bus at every given opportunity.
As for pay, it's not competitive or equal. Talking to coworkers makes it apparent how wildly different it is depending on when hired, gender, and age. Definitely not based on title or seniority. It's better for software than the other engineering fields, but don't expect a great offer. Look around the area and you can see Whisker isn't it. Raises aren't great and have been frozen for over 6 months now. They haven't said anything, but cash flow appears to be an issue.
If you want a crushing automotive style engineering environment, with even less effective management, non-competitive pay, but in a different setting, I guess it will be fine for you.
I want to love Whisker, everything the work on is supposed to be fun and interesting! They promised change during yearly reviews, but after 6 months it's much worse now. I suspect attrition in engineering soon.
I don't know about other departments except for customer service, which has a new interesting loss leading direction.
