Siemens

Excellent working environment within the team. The development team is well guarded from outside interference by the company's inherent hierarchical structure. Excellent pay raises were given in the first few years of starting your career (40%, 20%, ...). The workgroup was very open to new ideas, even from someone fresh out of university. A great place to start your career with an excellent work/life balance.

The working environment gets very formal very fast as soon as you start contacting outside your own team. Low starting salaries are compared to the rest of the IT industry (which is inevitable given the large pay raises you get in the first years). Performance appraisals and evaluations are tampered with by the financial staff, since evaluation is directly tied to bonuses. IT is an extremely small share of the company's business, so don't expect "change-the-world" projects.

The very formal environment may be appropriate for some of Siemens' other industries, but for IT, it seems very out of place compared to IT-exclusive companies.

Have a better starting salary and cut on first/second year raises. Nobody wants to be paid minimum wage for six months so that they can be raised to a value below industry standards anyway.