Software Engineer • Current Employee
Pros: Used to lead the industry by offering great benefits. Now, every other company does, but this has not bumped up theirs to match.
Great stock options, bonuses.
Uses performance year-end reviews.
Some opportunities to scale up roles.
Cons: The below applies to the Software Engineering department; I do not know how other departments are. The company claims to be agile and have self-organizing mission teams, but in reality, it follows a massive waterfall model. Managers go behind closed doors and decide roadmaps, scopes, and timelines without consulting Software Engineers, Product Managers, nor Designers. There is no option to influence as an engineer. Managers decide what to do, by when, and how, and almost always those are completely unrealistic expectations. Even then, not meeting those expectations gets you a negative year-end performance review. Performance is interpreted by managers, so even working the extra mile can get you a negative review if the manager is not happy. Role expectations are well stated company-wide, but again, are interpreted by managers. They can change their interpretation on the fly, and this can get you a negative performance review. Software Engineer Managers do not contribute (they are basically in meetings 8 hours a day), but are control freaks who want to be involved in every session and want to make every decision with heavy micromanagement, and then claim the achievement for themselves. Managers' actions show they do not trust their direct reports. Managers claim they listen, but regularly ignore feedback from their direct reports, push to cut on quality, and disregard the wellbeing of their employees, often pushing them to work very long hours just to meet the deadlines they decided. When things go well, they claim the success for themselves because of their management style. When things go wrong, they blame the team for being slow or incompetent. The company 10 years ago was great for engineering. Nowadays, Software Engineers are second-class citizens, code monkeys, tossed around from project to project with no regard for their input.