MathWorks

Good pay, private company with quarterly bonuses based on revenue and performance.

Delivery of software products for engineering and science applications.

Strong penetration in the market and in university curriculum.

Completely development centric. No real authority as a manager, but for managing individual contributors. Company focus on quality, but this does not translate to better quality. Some senior managers are "untouchable," so things don't necessarily improve. Performance ratings are not really set by managers; VPs can override. Managers have little say. It is hard to get things done as a manager due to lots of politics. Many quality initiatives, but few have significant impact due to lack of adoption by teams that choose not to adopt quality initiatives. Flat QA organization: younger managers with 5 years of experience are at the same job level as those with 25+ years.

To the CEO:

The Quality Initiative is a failure (see above). It's a case of the emperor's new clothes. No one tells the executives that processes don't work. Not a good place for professionals who want to get things done.