BSQUARE Reviews

Pros

excellent engineering capabilities and program management

Cons

very difficult company to work with.

Advice to Senior Management

change the CEO

Pros

Great location in Bellevue. Free parking. Free drinks. Flexible work hours. Some highly skilled software developers. Cool projects to work on.

Cons

Company is extremely mismanaged. Very politically charged work environment. Internal groups not working together. Lack of communication to employees. Random firing of employees and mysterious lay-offs. Micromanaged and not able to do your job effectively. Manipulating upper management staff. Low morale and employees are constantly looking for jobs with other companies. Some employees are given special treatment with pay and PTO - yes, it is obvious!

Advice to Senior Management

Serious changes need to take place in management. There is an upper management employee who is not respected or liked and he creates chaos is whatever he touches. Allow employees to do the job they were hired to perform. Treat all employees the same. It's unbelievable how many employees waste time smoking while others are chained to their desk. Promote employees and put together a career progression plan. Teach developers new technology rather than firing them or forcing them to quit. Why isn't employee retention under review, why are employees quitting? Read between the lines. Stop the unethical business practices!

Pros

Depending on project deadlines they were flexible on work hours, location good, got paid on time, some of the people were nice to work with.

Cons

Lack of respect and unrealistic expectations put on employees. I found the style of management was not good at giving a place to work where you were proud to work there. If you were one of the 'chosen' to get a minimal 1% to 2% raise after 2 years of not getting a raise, consider yourself lucky. Developers and employees in other departments are leaving because of morale issues, bad working environment and pay raises offered with other companies. .

Advice to Senior Management

Stop blaming the people who actually "work", leave employes alone to get their jobs done, the negative stuff doesn't make people want to work harder or stay with the company.

Pros

Bsquare has had its ups and downs, but has been a stable place to work. It is the best SI for Windows Embedded and gaining strength in Android development.

Cons

Bsquare has always struggled to expand from services into products. My belief this is largely due to a technologist C-level leadership with not a business mind and a severe lack of product management principles and in-bound marketing. If your are an engineer it is a solid place for embedded work. I also believe the BOD has limited understanding of the industry and should be rotated.

Advice to Senior Management

Bring in more seasoned business minded people to lead the effort for new product development. Give them freedom to make choices and go with it.

Pros

Small company, good relationship between colleagues, good working environment, flexible working hour. Very convenient location, near to MRT station, building is not new, but environment is okay.

Cons

GM is a sales background person, sometimes he can not understand engineer's position. Often speak loud in office, a good person though, but sometimes annoy

Advice to Senior Management

Report line is simple and not too long, just need to response to your line manager. However, sometimes the promotion line is not clear.

Pros

bSquare offers a lot of flexibility and an energizing work environment as well as a variety of technologies to work on.

Cons

Under the energizing work environment, there is a drive to milk employees for long hours with dismal benefits. Reviews have little to do with performance. bSquare is looking to get every dollar they can from customers regardless of competancy. Top management sees no values in skill because it does not translate into $$$ this quarter for milking customers.

Advice to Senior Management

Re-org so that you're sensibly investing in products that will return over time. Don't just invest at customer expense. Each of your employees would almost always do better working directly for the customers they currently contract with. Think about that.

Pros

Interesting technology. Many good people. It is the leader in putting the various embedded Windows versions on custom hardware. In this economy, it's good to have a job that uses your skills and experience. Bsquare can do that for you if you have the right background.

Cons

Their focus continues to be on professional services. If you like hourly work solving problems for other companies then this is OK. Their professional services prices are ridiculously high because they don't know how to scope or manage projects. They have to overcharge to handle overruns and this limits their sales and growth.

Bsquare does not know how to create or sell Products. They make half-hearted attempts to enter the market for products but are not willing to invest to make them successful. Their sales force knows how to sell services but is clueless about products. They should commit to making a real investment in products and products sales or just focus on their core competency and get out of products.

This lack of competence, commitment and support makes life miserable for their staff. It leads to lack of commitment and loyalty within the teams. The CEO is proud to say he pinches pennies. The problem is he and his staff carries this to extreme making it nearly impossible to get things done and be successful.

Advice to Senior Management

Brian Crowley seems to be totally disconnected from what his teams are living with every day. He is so focused on staying minimally profitable each quarter that he is letting things slip away, day by day. He has surrounded himself with a staff of VP’s that spend all their time trying to save a buck and maintain the status quo that they are not running their businesses for success. The products organization is totally out of control and its management is risking existence of the rest of the company.

Pros

intersting work. you can work on-site at different customer locations. pay and benefits are pretty good. some talented employees to learn from.

Cons

company lacks strong leadership. too much internal politics. certain executives lack integrity and they are very self centered and protective of their power at the expense of the company and employees. some really bad behavior of senior managers is tolerated. no vision of where the company is going. fail at all product development.

Advice to Senior Management

executive management should resign and go do something else. sell the company and bring in a new team or move middle management up to run things.

Pros

Opportunity to work with cutting edge technology. Absolutely outstanding engineering resources. The rank and file is filled with genuinely good people.

Cons

Leadership with a total lack of vision and communication. The continued effort to develop a products business is absolutely pathetic. Politically charged atmosphere. The down economy will not be kind to consulting firms.

Advice to Senior Management

1. The company will continue to survive but not prosper until the board installs a visionary CEO. Crowley is a good guy, but a terrible CEO. Vision is lacking and communication is totally non-existent.
2. Give up on the products quest. There are no $25m software products in the embedded space. If you are going to continue with products, at least put someone semi-competent in the Products VP role. Your current guy is clueless and he hurts the credibility of the rest of the Sr. Management team.
3. Put a leash on the CFO.
4. Develop a real strategy. Tactically the business is fine. There is no strategy.

Pros

There is a great variety of projects and technologies to work on at bSquare. There is also a flexible work schedule, telecommuting, as well as a fun, friendly environment.

Cons

bSquare has small raises (2-4%) and little or no career development plan in place for engineers.

Advice to Senior Management

Performance bonuses would help meet project goals and give extra incentives for efficiency.