Pros
- Many different technologies to learn and work on - Great people to work with (mostly) - You get to kill cancer and save lives every day at work - Sites worldwide, lot of room for living different places
Cons
- Upper management seems not to care about local teams. Major changes can happen without notice: 2 shift rotation can become full 3 shift rotation, Now you have to work Saturdays at a fixed time (instead of "get 8 hours in over the weekend) - VERY poor documentation. There are several places you have to hunt for information, and when you find it there may be a "bug" associated that you don't know about, because thats in a yet another database - Management seems to not listen to team suggestions - e.g. scheduling. When the team takes the time to discuss and agree on something, management throws out personal arguments, hand waves and dismisses - Poor benefits. Low contribution to 401K, poor health care (big deductables) - Very high turnover rates. Engineers get frustrated at lack of planning, poor management, etc. With so much tribal knowledge and specialized training, this hurts the company in a big way. - There has been no open discussion from senior management on how to lower turn over rates. - Each site has different arrangements. You might have 12hr shifts, 2 or 3 shift rotations, Saturdays. There is no attempt at standardization, it's just the local managers decision. If you look into transferring to an open position at another site, you basically have to treat it as a completely new company.