General Electric

Very solid company with a well-defined culture, values, and practices. GE Power & Water has been a leader in power generation products for years, and the company fights hard to stay there. They are not resting on their accomplishments, though, and there are a lot of opportunities for exciting new work. At a company this size, your experience will vary from location to location, program to program, and manager to manager. However, in general, most people here are professional, courteous, and enthusiastic about their job. There is a lot of flexibility in schedules and work scope for engineers, and I haven't experienced too much micromanaging of my time.

Not everyone is working hard, and those people can get away with it because of the large nature of the organization. The end result is that others have to pick up the slack.

In the worst cases, those not carrying their weight are older, "tenured" employees who have a lot of influence but are slowing down progress with their lazy attention to detail and mistakes. I'd assume this can happen at any very large organization, however.

Another issue is the uncertainty of the pay structure, raises, bonuses, and promotions. There is no clear definition for when or how any of those are set up and decided. Speaking with a few people, there is a general feeling that raises and promotions are, at best, based on some level of favoritism and, at worst, arbitrary. These forms of compensation clearly depend on how well your manager fights for you in closed-door leadership meetings, and not necessarily on performance.

So, depending on your manager and program, you may get promoted regularly and fairly, or you may work hard and sit in an entry-level position for 8 years. But, as said, while the raises may not be well defined, base pay seems to be in line with the industry and the area.

Be more transparent about compensation structure. Do not let a person sit in an entry-level position for seven or more years without promoting them or significantly recognizing them. Not only does it discourage that person, but seeing it also discourages the rest of us who worry about uncertain raises. In the long run, if people aren't worth promoting after three to four years, they should be "strongly encouraged" to change job functions or just outright fired.