Engineer • Former Employee
Pros: I love what this company stands for. It's very inspiring, and the product is fun and exciting. It's very rewarding seeing the vehicles I contribute to out on the road. When people see the Rivian, many are curious and walk up and ask questions.
The benefits are okay, not particularly great. I think the compensation is good and keeps up with most of the competition.
Cons: The culture seems to be changing relatively quickly, and for the worse. Just look at the downward trend of the company's Glassdoor ratings over the past year – a straight line sloped downward.
Management has shifted around, and it is just perpetually hectic and stressful because we are understaffed and simultaneously handling multiple generations of products with just one team. Upper management often comes up with optimistic (often unrealistic), aggressive schedules that exhaust the teams. It's quite stressful; hardly any appreciation has been expressed by my manager or manager's manager. They give us tasks and micromanage, but they put no energy towards keeping us a cohesive team. There is little to no communication to let us know what the higher-level view is, or what direction we're heading in. They're basically saying, "Just do what you're told, we'll make the important decisions, we don't need your input."
There are two sides to the culture: the mission and the operations, and they do not match each other. The mission looks to a bright, inspiring future, but how things operate and how things are managed is dysfunctional and stressful.