EchoStar Reviews in Denver, CO Area

Pros

Great co-workers, knowledge is shared and opportunity to work up or across different teams. Flexible time off and management is friendly towards a work life balance.

Cons

Low wages when compared to the other companies in the Denver metro area. It takes a lot of effort to get promoted even when your doing the needed work.

Advice to Senior Management

Cut the fat by firing non-performing engineers and instead focus on the young engineers who are performing beyond the call of duty and compensate them accordingly.

Pros

Pay was reasonable
Didn't have to work alot of overtime

Cons

Sink or swim type of mentoring
Pretty poor bennefits package

Pros

Located in Denver which is a nice, reasonable cost place to live.
Low stress and low expectations (one can easily coast through).
Cheap TV.

Cons

Very low pay compared to industry standards - - - 10+% less than similar jobs at other engineering companies.
Bad benefits for a "technology" company. Vacation time tops out at three weeks (with no carry over provision for unused vacation time), fewer holidays than other companies, fewer sick days, etc. The 401k match is far below the industry standards and has a 5 year vesting period (seems like most tech companies are 4 years). They taut profit sharing but that goes in your 401k with the same vesting period as above so really it only brings the match up to about even with other companies (assuming there's profit to share of course) and then you're still behind because other companies with profit sharing give you a check. Very expensive insurance that provides very minimal coverage. And so on ad nauseum....
No career advancement for a purely technical person - one must move into management to advance. If you fail at being a manager and are still a valuable individual contributor, they'll leave you in the management pay grades without management responsibility (e.g. Directors with no organization to direct) but you can't reach that level without moving into management. And how does one do that if there's no growth or management turn over in the organization?
Very poor program management as upper management dictates a finish date without any basis in reality. Individual projects within the program will attempt to make their parts work in isolation, but there is no coordinated program management to make certain the pieces line up together.
As noted in another review, upper management likes to micromanage details far below the level of things they should be concentrating on - much to the detriment of the organization.
Truly strategic work is really being done. Everything is very tactically driven around today's "hot project" with no one working through the complexities of things that won't be delivered for 2-3 years. Working strategically would alleviate some of the issues associated with lack of overall program management.
Very "in bred" on promotion and acceptance of ideas. Ideas for improvement, particularly when process related, are discounted if the idea isn't thought up by a long time employee. When presented by an employee with 20 years of engineering experience but only a short time at EchoStar, the idea is generally ignored with the explanation that "it's not the way we do things at Echostar" or worse "We're a world class engineering organization(1), we don't need to do that".

Enough for now. I could go on for pages but we'll leave it with this: It's a dead end job with poor compensation. If you want intellectual challenges that will get you ahead, don't work here. If you're ready to just coast through life to retirement, this could be the place for you.

(1) I've heard that expression used and having seen other companies I can say Echostar is at best a mediocre engineering company.

Advice to Senior Management

Bring in people that know how to run engineering organizations and listen to what they have to offer.
Get rid of managers that refuse to improve because an idea represents something that "is not the Echostar way".
Do bottom up program/project scheduling to determine if the finish dates are realistic.
Stop micromanaging and begin thinking strategically.

Pros

The main reason to work for echostar is Job security. After split from dish, the company turned around quite a bit in terms of treating their employees. It needs to change more.

Cons

Pay is below market standards.
Management is very bad.

Pros

Stable Company
Many opportunities for career growth if you work hard and look to learn
Many great co- workers
Fee TV

Cons

Below average pay scale
Below par benefits package
Disjointed communication from leadership
Below average time off for long term employees

Advice to Senior Management

Look to increase pay/benefits across the board in-order to retain employees, provide a more clear vision for EchoStar's future an how Hughes will be integrated.

Pros

The team I worked with at EchoStar 100 Inverness Terrace East (NOT DISH) was one of the best teams I have had the pleasure of working with. They are outgoing, friendly, personable and believe in having a good relationship with their employees. Also they are not time keepers at EchoStar like there counterpart DISH you are hired as a professional and you are treated as such.
As for the Windows, Unix , Network Staff they are friendly smart and treat you with respect. This is a company that I can see working at for a long time as long as they do not take the DISH mentality and rules.

Cons

I really have no cons about the IT department or the company, this is like working for a normal company out there. IT is very relaxed as long as you get the job done.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep the environment totally separate from DISH, understand that in order to keep employees you need to have a environment like EchoStar that is more mainstream. IT people are not a dime a dozen when you are working with cutting edge technology. I would recommend EchoStar to anyone out there in the Windows Admin area.

Pros

Exposure to TV industry
Free movie library

Cons

Clueless management. While I was there the majority of 2 entire departments just quit their jobs out of sheer disgust for impotent management.

Advice to Senior Management

Acknowledge good workers by paying and promoting accordingly

Pros

Great cash rich business with good future

Cons

top driven decision making - poor visibility in the managment vision

Advice to Senior Management

encourage participatory management

Pros

It's a pay check (although small by industry standards) so it beats unemployment. Low expectations so the underachiever can coast through. Stock purchase plan has higher cap than many places so you can make a bit of extra money by going "all in" and hitting the sell button when the shares hit your account (IMHO it's not a long term investment).

Cons

Low pay compared to technology companies. Extremely bad benefits (Example, I know people that go out on the street for insurance because they can get a better deal than the Echostar insurance). Very top down management structure - ideas that come from below, no matter how good, have no value with management - it's very much an attitude that "we're managers because we're smarter than you so your ideas don't have value". This is very much shown to employees as "we've been successful for 20 years doing things the way we have so there's no reason to change" - and if they wanted to change, why would the keep bringing back the same old upper managers that the company was founded with?
As for the common employee - to management you're just an easily replaceable cog in the machine. Don't expect to be treated with respect.
Management has no clue as to how to schedule and manage a large program. New programs are started after months of deliberation at the upper reaches of the company with a dictated due date. No one does a bottom up analysis to determine if the due date is even achievable. Instead they brow beat folks to put in extra hours to meet some arbitrary date on their task. But inevitably some other area couldn't even get close to meeting their deadlines because they are way understaffed and poorly managed. And the downside for missing a schedule by months? Well it's not the upper management who arbitrarily dictated the date that faces the heat.
Upper management loves to micro-manage things far below their level while ignoring things that they should be doing. For instance, Mike Dugan has to approve all performance reviews. Last year they were delayed 3 months (including cost of living adjustments being delayed) while he tried to change the design of a remote control that the customer had already approved and which there were already thousands of built remotes in the warehouse. Mr Dugan, the customer is always right even when it's not what you want.
A coworker that recently departed to greener pastures was asked where her company loyalty was. She replied that loyalty is something earned, not demanded, and what had Echostar done to earn loyalty from it's employees? Pretty much sums up the feeling in the trenches. As the economy turns, many people will be leaving to find greener pastures bc the company not only isn't doing anything to earn loyalty, it's in fact acting like it's doing a favor to give the employees a job.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of everyone above VP level and half your VPs. Replace them with competent engineering managers. You can't have a world class company with poor leadership.
Get people that know how to schedule and run engineering programs and give the free rein to do so (don't fire them for pushing back against the impossible).
Raise pay and benefits to be competitive with technology companies or you'll continue to have difficulty hiring good staff (and those that are just biding their time until the economy turns may stay on if treated well).

Pros

1. learn to work with 5 level management
2. great managers.

Cons

1. Need to work with the management. (Talk more)
2. Not flexible.
3. deadlines are sometime tough

Advice to Senior Management

1. competitive salary and benifits
2. don't save money in small things like security, turn attention to big things.