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Get away with middle-management bureaucracy

Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Dell for 6 years
August 17, 2014
Round Rock, Texas
2.0
Doesn't RecommendNeutral OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros

Great pay package offered upon joining. 401k match is good. Decent brand value.

Cons

Lots of so-called "Leads." To get promoted, show how to get work done from others, and in the process, avoid work altogether (which basically interprets to show yourself as a lead without leading by example). Hence, focus shifts from developing a quality product to developing a quality impression on the manager and becoming a "yes man" to the manager. In return, the manager hides the incompetence of these "Leads."

Managers and Leads team up to exploit and burden the small number of remaining engineers who do not conform to this culture. This becomes a major issue when an engineer wants to get work done but is stuck getting rid of bureaucracy.

Leads steal credits from fellow engineers and butter up the manager to maintain influence.

Incompetency in developing managers/directors. It's easy to become a manager by just buttering someone in upper management without the skills. A lot of favoritism exists in mid-level management.

No innovation and mostly dependent on external vendors to develop products. Most of the teams are integration teams.

Low morale due to frequent layoffs and little to no motivation to work.

It is a job that just pays your bills with very little to no pay increases.

Advice to Management

Get rid of middle-level management to save money and improve agility.

Not everyone can be a lead. Improve processes to help build a solid engineering team by improving morale and accounting for their technical contributions. Have accountability for engineering throughput of an individual.

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