Trace 3 Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Trace 3 full-time for less than a year

Pros – Great Environment
People who want to be there
Excellent Compensation
Everyone there is an "A" Player

Cons – Management is constantly changing direction.
No singular voice across the offices

Advice to Senior Management – Pick a path and stick with it for more that 4 months

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Trace 3 full-time for more than a year

Pros – Some of the best co-workers in the region. Very helpful, very smart people. Great engineers. Good sales teams. Very flexible work environment. Interesting and challenging work. Good mix of technologies and customers. Generally people are very amicable to work with. Sales team is "comfortable" with saying no (at times). Yearly EBC - everyone in the company comes to Las Vegas for a week of partying (and a few business lectures) with customers - is fun. Local regional offices also have social events, though that has happened a little less over the past year.

Cons – Management is confused. Leadership is scarce. Key leaders (CTO, President, others) have left the company and we have concrete plans to not back-fill them. Messages from the top are inconsistent and change every 6 months. THICK layers of management are being installed for a company this size. Nation-building is starting to happen. There isn't a lot of "team fun" anymore (the "EBC High" lasted about 2 days after the event) - people are too burnt out for happy hour or even going to lunch together anymore. Strong indicators of the company being sold. We have lost a lot of people - sales, engineering, executive leadership - and we are not back-filling *anyone*. We are too small to have a layer of corporate management this thick (unless we are being positioned to be sold, which has been denied for months). Everything is about bottom-line now: don't spend too much money on customer's lunches, hire people as cheaply as possible, don't travel unless you absolutely need to, don't do any training if it costs money, don't backfill anyone that leaves. Also, we only hire "A Players" which is great that we have people who are exceptionally talented, but that policy prevents us from hiring junior or mid-career engineers, which causes us to shy away from business deals where our senior engineers cost too much to use. If we had junior engineers we could take the business engagement at a price our customers would pay, and we could help those engineers come up to be senior engineers.

Advice to Senior Management – Figure out what you want to be when you grow up. Changing the 3-year plan every 4-5 months doesn't help anyone. Giving people false hope makes them bitter. Cut dead weight after 6 months instead of promoting them. Stop promoting people to their level of incompetency. Don't let new hires from the outside build their armies and isolate the people who have been loyal to you for years. Don't engage in business with customers unless someone can deliver on the promised work. Backfill engineers who leave!!! Get the branch offices on the same page as HQ. Don't assume that all of the offices buy into your way of doing business. Backfill leadership, managers, and sales people who leave!!! Hire junior engineers and let the senior engineers groom/teach them. ** You are exhausting your work force. ** From end of Q4 -> end of Q1 our office lost 6 people - an average of 2 per month! Those of us who are left, if we don't get some help soon, we will leave also. Then you will have no one but new people, and your culture won't matter because it won't exist.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Trace 3 full-time for more than a year

Pros – If you want to become a technology trainer this is the company to work for. They will train you and make you an instructor. If you are aligned with a High Performing Sales Rep you will have a great time. CEO is very transparent, he will tell you the truth with no BS.

Cons – Company has lost direction, now seeking to become a Tech outsourcer and Tech Trainer. High employee churn rate. SE must uncover opportunities, position & pitch solution, perform installs, resolve problems while Sales Reps send Quotes and get all the glory. Company says they value engineers but reality is the Sales Reps are the ones who reap the rewards.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop promoting people to position's they have never held or have zero experience. Stop telling employees that this is a great place to work and start making it happen. Think outside the box, cross train engineers. Just because someone has been with the company for 5+ years does not make him a manager, not everyone can mentor or lead. If a manager has lost/fired 5 or more Engineers in the last 2 years, it's not the engineers who suck!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Trace 3

Pros – Good opportunity to learn and make cash if you connect to the right sales executive. Travel if you like to or stay at home base. Pretty flexible on time.

Cons – Young managers who party like rockstars, yet can't manage their staff and provide effective and meaningful feedback. Setting goals and milestones and remembering them are another area of needed improvement. Basically if you can't sell and install, you are worthless to them and will build a case to remove you. Will suffer demotions without being informed and your job changes without notice until you ask. Basically treads on being a hostile work environment in some areas.

Advice to Senior Management – Aggressive sales tactics and people exist in the organization - this may have worked years ago, but is a detriment today. Talented people will exit who could and would be essential to the company growth and bottom line. However, some members of management simply don't understand leadership principles and lack mentoring capabilities. Some just appear blinded by the opportunity to make lots of money. Sadly, money isn't everything and being proud of where you work tends to trump a paycheck sometimes.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Trace 3

Pros – Great people, management knows what they're doing, and the work environment is very worker friendly. Management listens / compensates you for ideas. Very flat organization, so everyone has a voice.

Cons – Growing too fast to pay much attention in individual employee growth. Once you've specalized in a job, it's hard to get trained on a new position.

Advice to Senior Management – When promoting people, or hiring them, make sure there is enough staff to be able to train and cultivate that new hire / newly promoted employee.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Trace 3

Pros – Ability to unleash your creativity
Good structure no roadblocks
Brilliant people
Vacation Policy - take time when you need it
Professional/Adult environment

Cons – Weak medical and retirement benefits

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend