Autodesk

Smart, dedicated people. Direct managers care, or at least seem to. Above-average benefits for the industry. Smart people. Great opportunity to advance to middle management. Above-average work-life balance. It would be the ideal place to work if not...

The people at the helm will gut engineering departments and replace them with engineers in Bangalore and/or Shanghai, or fresh out of school, to meet the bottom line and appease Wall Street. They've done it before, and they'll do it again. Beware.

If this company didn't own the DWG format, they would have died decades ago. AutoCAD's profit has allowed them to buy their way into other industries, gobble up competition, and then over time release those engineers, replacing them with cheaper talent either overseas or right from school. They have done this time and time again. It's a modern-day form of corporate raiding.

It is a terrible way to run a business, and it is a reason why they can't grow any software in-house and have it succeed, outside of AutoCAD and its verticals. Virtually all successful products beyond these have been acquired, and of those products, at least 50% of the engineers are gone within 5 years. It's sad, really.

You get what you pay for. If you made better products, you wouldn't have to cut good people in order to meet quarterly estimates and keep Wall Street off your back.

You could just sell more product.

Cutting into the quality of your engineering is a short-sighted, short-term solution that, in the long run, shows why Adobe is spanking you in every market they wish to engage you in.

When was the last time you wrote your own software that was a runaway hit? Hmm?

There's a reason for it.

The man I knew from Ithaca Software knew better.

It's sad how he changed over time due to the influence of Wall Street.