AT&T

The only good thing about the TDP program is that I got to make great friends. You're capped at working 40 hours a week, so that helps with work/life balance. The 50% discount on AT&T services is great. Great place to work if you want to have a steady salary and don't care about learning much.

There is nothing "Emerging" about the program. This is probably the worst place for a CS major to learn something. You work on outdated technologies with remote teams. All the collaboration is virtual with team members across the globe.

The hiring standards are way too low. The good programmers that you work with are generally contractors from Accenture or some other consulting firm.

The way benefits work is laughable. A person making PowerPoint presentations and a person developing good code make the same mediocre salary. The management stresses that benefits are on par with other top tech companies, which is not true at all.

A new computer science grad could easily be making 20-30% more in the same city. They stress a lot on the use of Agile methodologies, although you will most likely never get a chance to work with it.

Employees are led to believe that they are the best of the best, which is leaving a false sense of pride among them. Nothing is based on merit. Management is very biased towards ass-licking employees. And, yeah, the worst of all, appearance has precedence over intellect and merit, which is infuriating.

Improve hiring standards. There is way too much deadwood in the organization. Hiring 50 people but not having work for 45 of them is not how things are going to get better.

Engineers are making spreadsheets and presentations, and programmers are sitting idle with little to no work at times. This is why there are budget issues within the company.

The supply is way more than the demand. Rather than hiring in bulk, make sure the present employees are utilized to their full potential and are compensated appropriately.