Pros

Excellent company benefits
Pleasant geographical location
A larger proportion of the business staff and management are good to excellent

Cons

Sorely underutilize highly experienced and highly qualified technology staff

Advice to Senior Management

Need vastly improved practices in technology staff hiring and retention practices.

Pros

CAISO is committed to managing energy trading for the State. The business is important to prevent the ENRON issues that occurred in the late 90's. The work site is nice, there is good security and facilities. CAISO is a quasi-state of California business deriving their funding from charging back fees to energy Producers and Purchasers as well as floating hundreds of millions of dollars in bonds to support MRTU and operating expenses.. There appears to be adequate funding and the employee medical/dental/401k and Senior Management bonuses are very generous.

Cons

CAISO has been trying to launch the upgraded MRTU program for at least 6 years and until 2009 all attempts have been unsucessfull. At least $300,000,000.00 was spent on this effort. Senior Management of ISO has recently stabilized but they are not empowered. All decisions are controlled by the CFO/CIO/VP. Poor Management at the top of the CAISO tree has caused poor morale and a virtual revolving door of employee and consultant turnover. Employees are in fear of upper management as they shoot the messenger. CASIO has been fined or assessed liquidated damages by governing agencies and the resistance to improve still exists.

Advice to Senior Management

Be honest and tell the truth. Covering up projects that have gone awry needs to be discontinued. Failures should be used a training tools as be best learn by our mistakes. Politics are common in the workplace but at the CAISO it is about perception and not actual performance.

Pros

Flat organization allows for lateral advancement. The compensation package is pretty good, although from what I'm told, not as good as SMUD's. They are pretty flexible in terms of time off. At least 4 people have had children and were able to take time off (paternity leave?) The boss doesn't watch the clock every minute; exercise that takes a little more than an hour isn't even noticed!

Cons

Flat organization leaves little room for advancement. Most engineers are good at sharing information, but there are a few that are left from the reorganization of May 2003.

Advice to Senior Management

Use internal employees to get MRTU started on time. Contractors seem to keep pushing the go-live date back.