Verizon

A few very good benefits, such as a 6% 401K match.

Bonuses were okay (pre-Wireline merge).

"Change Energizes Us" is one of our mottos, but it is a lie. It does not mean that they are willing to change anything to improve work life. It means that the business will constantly change their minds and leave everyone else to deal with that stress.

This is not a 9-5 development job; it is 24/7. You will constantly work through the night, 11 PM to 9 AM. No one will hesitate to call you at 4 AM when something comes up. Working weekends is standard. You will get calls on holidays and vacation, too.

DevOps, Agile, Waterfall – we implement them all at once. I am constantly overburdened with the business's desire to do continuous integration while I am on projects that are "Agile" but have two-hour-long meetings every day. At the same time, 90% of the other projects follow a Waterfall approach. It is chaotic, and very few people actually understand DevOps.

All-day meetings. "People are not working if they are not on the phone." That has to be what everyone else is thinking. My calendar is booked solid four times over all day. This leaves me always ridiculed for not joining some meeting (numerous people use work and cell phones to take two calls at once) and leaves very little time to do actual development.

Locked into a pay grid that you cannot move out of. Even if you overperform, you cannot get a raise outside of your pay grid; you have to get a promotion, which can take a year to go through HR. The only way to get out of the pay grid you are in is to leave the company.

Large yearly layoffs have left wireline very thin. The same is happening now in wireless. Hope you make the cut each year.

They don't even give free coffee.

Care about your employees. Hire smarter, not more. Actually move to DevOps; enforce it. Quit just saying it. Listen to employees more. Keep work weeks to 40 hours, and your employees will stay sane.