National Instruments – “Unfortunately not the best place to advance your career.”

Pros

Good work/life balance, job security, great benefits.

Cons

All these pertain to IT: Very disorganized in most aspects, unclear career paths, managers play favorites, enormous amounts of pointless meetings, very slow path to getting promoted (which kills motivation), very lacking in training initiatives, discord amongst teams, too many projects get drawn out then eventually canceled. This is the wrong place for someone with an entrepreneurial spirit.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't play favorites, help junior programmers advance in their careers instead of focusing ONLY on what the senior people have to say. Also, work hard to shake the image that IT is not respected in the company - that's terrible for employee morale, especially for ambitious people right out of college.