MathWorks

A few things I like about MathWorks are:

• Great benefits
• Friendly culture
• Work-life balance
• Challenging problems to solve

The CEO and upper management seem to be very engaged in the company.

This is a good company that has gone soft in recent times, resembling a big corporation with rampant inefficiency. Given that the company is profitable, there do not seem to be revenue pressures on anyone. Coming from a startup prior to joining MathWorks, I am constantly surprised at the lack of accountability everywhere. In engineering, one can work on a feature for any length of time as long as the appropriate specification documents are generated on a regular basis. There is also a huge difference in the quality of engineers from one group to another. Unfortunately, the groups that harbor mediocre engineers have mediocre leadership that is so entrenched because of their long tenure that this inefficiency gets protected and even nurtured.

Outside of engineering, there is even less accountability. There seem to be many jobs where people just show up at meetings, do not contribute in any meaningful manner, and leave at the end of the day. You see them showing up at work at 10 and leaving at 4. Such sights are highly demotivating to a young, hardworking newcomer and make it hard to pump oneself up for superior performance.

There seems to be quite a bit of abuse of flex-time, where people claim to work from home. It makes marginal sense if this is a software engineer who can theoretically do coding over VPN. However, you see those whose job is coordination (program management, usability, marketing) claiming to work from home on a regular basis.

Institute a culture of high productivity.

Cut the fat that is permeating the company by getting rid of any job that has no deliverables beyond "setting up meetings."