Intuit

I think that compared to most companies Intuit's size, it's still probably a pretty decent place to work. Although our commitment to our employees is faltering, it could probably be a lot worse. We've laid off a lot of people recently, but if you're still here, chances are your salary and overall compensation are quite good. If you're willing to play the game, if managing up is your calling, then I think that advancement opportunities exist.

We've lost our focus on customers. In fact, we've lost our ability to focus at all.

We re-org around personalities, not business strategies.

Just as soon as we have a team working on something, we start asking them to "think more broadly" – which is code for "focus on more things".

Gone are the days when small teams got together and stayed together long enough to figure out the best way that they could deliver for customers.

In particular, if you're an engineer and you are interested in any aspect of product development other than actually coding, Intuit is no longer a good home.

The idea these days seems to be that product work is for PMs and designers, and innovation is something to be compartmentalized off in "whitespace" projects and not to be found in any of our main-line products.

This sounds glib, but honestly, just draw a line on the org chart below the directors and fire everyone above it. You might lose one or two good people, but overall, these folks are the ones that have been screwing up for several years now and manage to move along to another (better) role before anyone notices.

One more thing – Brad Smith is a huge disappointment. I wasn't a huge fan of Steve, but at least you could see the impact he had on the company. Brad is the invisible man, only showing up long enough to tell some folksy stories and foist a new "leader" on our group. It's pathetic when a CEO talks about wanting to be "like Apple or Google." Why can't we be "like Intuit"?