Alcatel-Lucent Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Alcatel-Lucent

Pros – Benefits are very competitive
Flexible work schedule (in terms of when, not how much)

Cons – Big discrepancy in pay
Limited options for career advancement
Despite that, you have to work extraordinarily hard just to feel secure with your job
Politics of an overly large, multi-site, multi-national, recently merged company

Advice to Senior Management – Cut back on some of the management and more nebulous jobs. Try hiring some real workers again.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Alcatel-Lucent

Pros – Able to work at home.

Cons – Higher Levels makes all the money...They don't pay their bills on time. They let go all the worker bees with experience. Too many family members at job. It's not what you know but who you know. Will work someone to the grave

Advice to Senior Management – Learn how to manage

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Alcatel-Lucent

Pros – Most of the pros have dwindled in the last decade as they cut benefits and most of the US work force. I guess the espresso machine is nice...

It seems everything else I can think of has a downside. Flexible hours and the ability to work from home, but that just helps you work a ton of overtime. Decent 401k matching, but now you're forced to invest through Alcatel-Lucent's investment division. (I felt much more comfortable with the management by Fidelity.) The occasional stock option, but they're worthless.

Cons – They've shifted all growth overseas so the few left in the US are stuck carrying a huge burden. Despite that, there is a huge disparity in salaries so most of us don't get paid what wey're worth. If you come in low, don't expect a lot of raises to help you catch up to the others that came in when the economy was better. So aim high if for some bizarre reason you still want to work here. Don't be afraid to reject or counter their offer.

Layoffs happen all the time without notice. Your job feels less secure than if you were at a small company where they actually care about their employees. Management does not communicate well to employees. Sadly, rumors are more dependable.

Advice to Senior Management – If you want to regain any amount of loyalty, start caring about your employees again. You've lost that loving feeling...

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Alcatel-Lucent

Pros – Global company so lots of opportunity to work with others from different countries and of different cultures. Potential to travel and see other places.

Cons – Overall culture of "If you are from former Alcatel you have it made, if you are from former Lucent you are done." If you are not in France, you don't matter. Professional development, promotions etc. are all nonexistent and if they happen, the process is totally opposite of transparent. Decisions where $100M+ each year is on the line are made without much information and on the spot. When the $100M+ becomes an unnecessary expense, nobody is held accountable. Decisions about $50 are taking forever and should you do something "inappropriate" with the $50 you are gone.

Advice to Senior Management – Hold people accountable. Base decisions on facts. Merit and results should be the ultimate measure of everything, not the fact that I am from former Alcatel so I must be a genius and if I am from former Lucent then I must be a moron.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Alcatel-Lucent

Pros – Time and place flexibility. You can work from home and take your time off as you wish. The location is easy even if commuting from NY or Penn.

Cons – Negotiate well on your way in or you'll be stuck in an underpayed job forever.
Beware of that you'll be working with a bunch of people who care more about reaching pention eligibility than fixing the problems of the company.

Advice to Senior Management – You need to figure out a way of rebuilding these things with employees: trust, trust, trust, trust, trust, trust, trust.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Alcatel-Lucent

Pros – Still has talented engineering staff. Unfortunately, downsizing and restructuring has constrained a truly talented staff to focus on survival rather than innovation and creativity.

Cons – Relentless downsizing has destroyed teamwork and work-life balance.
Leadership has become political and abusive - most visionary leadership has either been FMP'd or left voluntarily for better opportunities.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop outsourcing.
Emphasize portfolio management rather than across the board staff reductions.
Increase the staff/manager ratio by eliminating unnecessary managers and layers of management.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Alcatel-Lucent

Pros – Alcatel-Lucent is a big name in telecommunication.

I ran across some nice people while there.

The cafeteria has decent food.

Cons – I had a terrible time there. I think it was my manager, who I felt was too far removed from the project yet seemed to act as if he knew where to take it. I'm a neophyte so maybe I shouldn't criticize his decisions, but I felt that he didn't understand certain aspects of the project, yet he seemed confident in his decisions...

Advice to Senior Management – Get more feedback from the lower level engineers -- don't discount them.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Alcatel-Lucent

Pros – * The company has leading edge technology in many areas. It has invested well in certain cases.
* The engineering team has a lot of talent and many are among the best I have seen. They are capable of building world-class products.
* Not just in engineering, but in every other area, the company is filled with employees who are bright, capable and talented. Given the chance and the authority they can do a bangup job.
* The company remains one of the most recognized brands in the world and has a lot of installed equipment that should make it proud.

Cons – * The corporation is mired in bureaucracy and red tape and multi level approvals that take forever to progress. It is neither nimble nor agile. This is due to the centralized decision and policy making that the company follow.
* There is a large chasm between the market requirements and development strategy because the company has too many people trying to make a single decision. This results in products that contain "everything" but are too "complex" and come to market very late.
* There are too many personnel in jobs that have a very limited span of control and this leads to turf wars as each fights to protect their own small piece of turf.

Advice to Senior Management – Break the company up into smaller companies. If not, distribute more authority downwards rather than the central decision making that has paralyzed the company.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Alcatel-Lucent

Pros – Through the merger, ALU is an undeniable powerhouse in the areas that it plays. Long-term, with the proper management, the company has the real opportunity to succeed. Certain areas (Wireline BUs) have aligned quickly. The company has an extremely diverse and intelligent workforce. There is considerable turnover (voluntary and not so voluntary) and for those willing to suffer the pain, there may be long term opportunities for growth.

Cons – Even though this was clearly an Alcatel acquisition of Lucent, morale is poor regardless of whether you are from former Lucent or former Alcatel. Management structures needs to be thinned down... way too many VPs, Directors and Sr. Managers and far too few worker-bees. Managment organizations are overly matrixed resulting in a lack of accountability and political manuvering. Certainly the Lucent legacy has been to treat non-people managers with a lack of respect and distrust. It's based upon the old-world mentality of creating layers of managers to watch each other (Henry Ford era) because they can not be trusted. This has not changed. Ironically, many remaining people managers have been promoted for the wrong reasons. Business systems, product lines and corporate functions still need better integration and streamlining. This is known and accepted as the way it is. Expect to work a lot of hours to compensate for this.

Advice to Senior Management – Sr. Management has failed their jobs at integration. It all looked rosey early on, but it is now clear that much of the work was left undone.

There is a lot of empire building and politics in the company. Those that play it well get rewarded. Brown nosing and kissing *ss is rewarded. Change the culture; break down the walls; pay for performance and start this at the top. A lot of hard decisions regarding the post integration of the company has not been handled well. I think we need a leader who has a clear vision and the courage to execute. New management is needed.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Alcatel-Lucent

Pros – It would be hard to find any bar a regular paycheck

Cons – Just about everything else. A spectacularly mis-managed company with a greedy senior management and leadership who are deeply cynical. The company is nothing but a vehicle for the leadership team to amass some degree of personal wealth before jumping ship. Its culture is dishonest, it engineering talent all but non-existent, its direction rudderless. An amazingly tragic place to work.

Te company is essentially a shell operation with little original work taking place within it, most jobs having been outsourced. The acquisitions of the late 1990s have been reduced to rubble and as far as I can tell the only people who remain are life-time Lucent employees waiting for thier pensions or those locked in the immigration process.

Advice to Senior Management – It would be hard to think of any bar break the company up

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend