CSC – “Consider Carefully and Don't Expect to Go Far”

Pros

CSC gets a lot of big, long-term government service contracts, so there is good job stability while your contract lasts. A lot of the technical work can be challenging and interesting. Benefits were pretty good.

Cons

Pay is often substandard because CSC gets contracts by bidding low so that they have to pay low. And watch out when it's time for your contract re-bid. When it's rebid time, they cut costs (people) however they need to for the sake of saving money and then deal with the fallout after they win the contract. After you've worked at CSC for several years, if you've done OK they do make some effort to find other work for you within the company, but don't bet the house. The worst thing in my division was bad managers. Some were just plain fools who must have kissed up somehow. One section lead was so unpopular that half the section quit within a year, and guess what, CSC promoted the guy right after that. Almost all the managers treated their (highly intelligent, technical) staff in my division like children. They were highly secretive and there was a widespread feeling that we in the tech staff could never trust them to be straight with us on what was going on. At one point CSC did a company-wide poll and found that only about 1/3 of their people trusted their own supervisors to tell the truth about things. Also many of the managers didn't really understand what we were doing technically, but wouldn't listen to advice from below. It's hard to accept managers as your superiors when they are plainly less intelligent and less knowledgeable than the people under them. Also, within the tech ranks promotions were few and far between even for excellent performers. Finally, there was often pressure to put in unpaid overtime just for the sake of it.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop treating your highly-educated employees like fools or children, and don't be so afraid to be honest with them about what's going on in the company.