Boeing

Excellent health care coverage, 401k

My experience working as a software developer (or 'programmer/analyst' as they called it) was horrendous. Firstly, I was unable to work for the first several months as they couldn't figure out how to get the basic requirements together. I literally had to come to work and do nothing for 8 hours each day.

After that, when I did start working on a small CRUD web application with one other dev, it was a total disaster. None of the people in charge or clarifying the requirements could agree on anything, so we were working on extremely vague requirements. Everyone I talked to would simply point their finger at someone else. By the time I had resigned, there were STILL no clear requirements.

There was also no software development process to speak of - we were simply handed the very rough draft with vague instructions and told to get it done.

The developers in the group seemed to be on a very low level. I never once got a clear answer about anything that I asked anyone. My manager, who was supposedly a developer for over a decade, had never heard of an ORM. This manager was also extremely ineffective - we had bi-weekly meetings, but whenever I would ask her about anything, she would say that she didn't know and maybe I should ask someone else.

We spent absurd amounts of time having meetings about safety and watching videos about people working on the shop floor, despite the fact that we worked at desks in an office. Our group meetings were nothing but "flowdown" from "the higher ups" that consisted of topics that were not relevant to anyone in the group. For instance, we once had a long discussion about company cell phone usage despite the fact that no one in the group used a company cell phone. There was NEVER any talk about software development and its quality, despite the fact that we were a software development group - all the talk was about inane Boeing rules, policies, and corporate nonsense.

Everyone constantly complained and was grumpy. It was the most negative and toxic work environment that I have ever seen. The older people talked constantly about how they couldn't wait to retire, and the younger people were totally disinterested in their work. There were many, many people who would do next to nothing all day every day. There were also widespread layoffs across all of IT that were handled very poorly - and they also laid off the most experienced employees first.

There was also constant harping about how we needed to save the company money - by using the website self-help instead of calling the IT help desk; by booking the absolute cheapest flights and hotel rooms if travelling - I had one tiny monitor because anything else was "not in the budget." There was also constant talk about all the financial "challenges" that Boeing was having.