Fortinet

The tech is really cool.

There is lots to learn and definitely lots of opportunity to learn.

Benefits are pretty decent, and so is pay.

Company started offering snacks and partially paid lunches.

Also, there is low overhead, so getting work done is easier.

You don't have to sit in countless pointless meetings.

The biggest downside for me is the lack of support. I understand that there is a learning curve and a period of self-learning wherever you work. However, when you get stuck on something and have tried everything you could possibly think of, management just hits you with stricter deadlines instead of offering help.

When the deadlines didn't improve performance (because I was still stuck), the deadlines became even more strict.

Now, I understand that deadlines are put in place to get the work done, but if you see your developer struggling with a problem, you should think about actually providing some help.

For my specific situation (I can't say for all other managers), my manager consistently keeps undermining my ideas and makes me try out his ideas. Of course, when I've wasted so much time testing his ideas, I am left with the blame that I couldn't come up with the solution sooner.

On the same note, work feels very siloed. Almost every person for themselves. You actually can't get much help if you are stuck on something.

Also, the way engineers tackle problems here is to come up with quick fixes rather than solid fixes. So, quantity over quality. They care much more about how many bugs you can fix rather than how difficult the bug fixes are.

Encourage collaboration. That way, every person can benefit and improve from each other because not everyone can know everything there is to know.

When a developer is stuck, instead of putting strict deadlines on the work to encourage progress, maybe offer some help or resources.