D&R Engineer • Current Employee
Pros: Get to be around pre-production vehicles. A lot of resources at your disposal if you can find out about them and know what site to use.
Better than average company 401k contributions. A bit better than average medical benefits.
Cons: Bureaucracy, bureaucracy, bureaucracy.
No support from management. Everything is always the engineer's responsibility and fault, no matter what. No respect for white-collar employees.
They can't wait to outsource salary jobs to LLCs. No upward mobility unless you are connected, related, or get absorbed into the collective.
Whatever bonus they say you are eligible for, cut it in half because they don't give out full bonuses to working-level employees (other than UAW, of course). Meager annual raises.
Expect a "surprise" on your performance review. The review won't be based on actual performance or stated goals, other than warranty numbers or profitability, which you don't have control over.
You are fully expected to know everything about everything and never be wrong (by being wrong, I mean having a different opinion than management, regardless of the facts). Every decision you make will be second-guessed eventually.
After you are pressured to complete a task in a few weeks, an army of checkers will be given months to pick your work apart and tell you exactly how you should have done it (but not actually help you to do it). You will be given glitchy processes/systems to complete your tasks.
Did I mention bureaucracy?