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Generous but frustrating place to work as a software developer

Senior Principal Software Engineer
Former Employee
Worked at Dell for 2 years
September 21, 2024
Round Rock, Texas
3.0
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros

At least before I was laid off in February 2024:

  • Good compensation.
  • Good benefits.
  • Flexible work hours.
Cons

Bad developer experience (if you care to develop quickly and properly), because of:

  • Very bad management, especially from the technical point of view.
  • No concrete responsibilities – everyone is responsible for everything, which makes everyone responsible for nothing, making it next to impossible to quickly find the right SME for the problem at hand.
  • Outdated development practices and technologies.
  • Sticking to convenient technologies, instead of the appropriate ones.
  • Outdated management mentality.
  • Low quality of programmers (hence colleagues).
  • Very high throughput of people.
  • No specialization – tasks are thrown at you without regard to your specialization. Your colleague might have to do your job (using JavaScript, which she does not know) in a week instead of a few hours, because you are given her tasks, which you also will be completing 10 times longer because you do not know Python. Hence, tens of hours of lost time (Michael Dell pays dearly for each), bad quality of code, etc...
  • No developer workstations with Linux or Mac – the company is stuck to very glitchy Windows-based machines with very resource-greedy security tools (e.g., bootstrapping a project takes 30 minutes instead of 2 due to antivirus software) which I had to restart almost every day, and develop instead remotely on Linux virtual servers.
  • Terrible communication and response time among colleagues – nobody is in a hurry, probably thinking that Michael will pay anyway (or lay you off, because you are too expensive).

At the moment, the company actively sheds both bad "apples" and good but expensive ones in hundreds and thousands, shifting development to India, whose developers are much cheaper, but mostly very slow and of low quality.

Advice to Management

Wake up and value the company's time.

Additional Ratings

Work/Life Balance
4.0
Culture and Values
3.0
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
5.0
Career Opportunities
2.0
Compensation and Benefits
4.0
Senior Management
2.0

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