MathWorks

• Good starting point for fresh graduates.
• Financially stable if you want to be relaxed with little work.
• Good knowledge gain in the first 2 years.

Mathworks will do lots of bragging when you interview. So let me just directly point to what's wrong with the company.

• Low starting salaries. They brag a lot during the interview process. Do not be frustrated if you do not get into Mathworks. Since there aren't that many big companies for Science and Engineering Graduates, Mathworks gets a huge number of applications, and it rejects almost any applicant for no clear reason. I myself interviewed many people, but hiring managers could find any stupid reason not to hire. One hiring manager said that he didn't want to hire this candidate because he was looking out the window too many times during the interview.

• You think feedback from your colleagues with whom you do 90% of your work will decide your rating and promotion. But that decision is made by your manager, with whom you do 10% of your work, and other Senior Management folks (old timers) who may not even have heard of you. So when you get frustrated after some reviews as to what you may be doing wrong, your manager makes stupid excuses. The manager asks quietly their favorite team member (whom he/she wants to promote) to make presentations, make personal communications, emails, and what not to approach the big managers who make ratings and promotion decisions at the end of the year. They make sure that senior managers sit in these useless presentations that have nothing to do with the product.

• If you are smart and a graduate from schools like MIT or Stanford, incompetent colleagues will leave no chance in taking some credit for smart work you have done. Behind your back, they will in fact try to take most credit for contributions you have done. They will also undermine your work at every occasion to make sure they are recognized.

• The only reason some really smart people are still working there is they think management is giving them credit for their work. Another reason is that they are some of the few smart people who are verbose.

• You will definitely need to do a lot of butt-licking if you want a promotion.

• Developers are given a little bit more respect. Senior Development Management knows that if these important people leave, they will have a tough time replacing them. When a developer wants to leave, these managers scramble to make any concessions, pay raises, better positions, etc., so that the developer stays no matter what. Quality Engineering Management doesn't have to do that.

• You will see many employees in the company that are visa holders. So if your green card is in processing, especially if you are from India and China, they know you have nowhere to go. Even managers say it to your face that you are stuck here, and all you can do is smile and ignore it.

Let the peers and manager decide what rating an employee should get. The big-shot managers who joined the company a decade back, and have strong decision authority, shouldn't be allowed to decide. They should know that if they are being invited to all these presentations, the intention of the presenter is to make sure you know his/her name during the review process. Smart, productive, competent, and hard-working people are ignored in this process.

A promotion should be given if you have shown the ability to handle big projects, multi-tasking, and the ability to lead, not because your manager is praising you and bootlicking for you during the reviews.

A warning to hard-working people: this company is not for you; you won't be recognized here.