Siemens

I worked for Siemens for just over 4 years. I worked in both the US and in Germany.

At first, I was "star-struck" that I was working for a large corporation like Siemens. There were plenty of travel opportunities and what I thought were "high-tech" projects. The corporate brainwashing they fed college recruits led you to believe that you'd be working on "world-changing" projects.

What's good with Siemens:

• Work/life balance is good (but only Siemens; it's filled with aggressive employees).
• Benefits are fair (but not the salary).
• Chances to live in low cost-of-living areas of the country (Tennessee).
• Good travel per-diems.

Over my 4 years, I had the opportunity to meet and work with many other Siemens employees from Tennessee, Georgia, and Germany. Many of the other Siemens employees are middle-aged guys who have no plans whatsoever of ever leaving Siemens or changing for the better. They just sit back, waiting for retirement, and have no energy to change. Their portfolio of technical skills was assembled back in the 90s and early 2000s.

Over time, I started realizing that Siemens suffers from a lot of problems:

• Way too much politics between the US and Germany. (Spoiler alert: Germany ALWAYS wins!)
• Salaries were below average for other software companies.
• The technology Siemens uses is at least a decade behind. And when they do 'play' with newer technology, the older employees get first grabs at using it, which in the end leads to disasters because they haven't kept up with things since the 90s. I wish I had recorded some of the technical conversations I had with 'Senior Developers'... some of them have no concept of topics regarding cybersecurity, modern programming languages, and modern practices.
• There are way too many older employees who are standing in the way of younger employees. They've been there forever, doing things the same way over and over again.

Within one year of leaving Siemens, I was making more than 30% more money, working for a 'true' high-tech company, working with modern technology, and leading my own team of software developers. None of this would have been possible if I had stayed at Siemens.