ETC Reviews

The company as a whole is probably anywhere from 1-3 decades behind in software development practices. It's 2021, c'mon folks :) There are of course exceptions to this, but a culture of getting software out the door ASAP has created behemoths of code that can't hold themselves up under their own weight. And the company structure really isn't set up for software development. Some managers do not have any experience in the field they manage and are unwilling to listen to anyone except for more senior engineers (or themselves), even when they might be wrong. Absolutely agree with another review that "They will work naive suckers into the ground that don't know any better or have too much to lose to say no." They absolutely have too much to lose with how ineffectively the development of some software projects are and with how spread thin everyone is. There are some senior engineers who are excellent case studies in ego and Expert Beginner-ism. They lack a grasp of what modern software development is and why it might be better than their current approach. Or even that things could be improved for some marginal cost. Some folks seem to be stuck in constant near sighted mode and can't step back to see the bigger picture, to look at long term growth and sustainability of a project. And many projects are around for a long long time. The cost/benefit value of implementing more automation seems absolutely lost on some folks. Avoid the controls department or any of their projects, they tend to be saddled with tech debt and lack a realistic grasp on deadlines. Field issues and constantly looming deadlines tend to leave things in a constant fire fighting mode. Generally the people are nice, but the work environment is pretty brutal. Chronic issues with deadlines. The company constantly sets deadlines that are unrealistic. Or the scope of a release grows without moving deadlines or cutting something else. It also feels like a lot of people have never head of the Planning Fallacy and how to combat it. I've had colleagues yelled at in meetings because they said that a project wouldn't be able to meet a deadline, it simply wasn't possible under the current constraints. Why would you yell at someone? How does getting angry about reality help anyone? Add more people to the project. Cut scope. Automate some things that take a long time. Take your pick. There are a lot of constraints to be balanced and it's a hard problem, but not one worth getting angry at people over. Improvise, adapt, overcome. Lack of leadership around software development. There is no top down support for software quality and sustainability. All efforts have been bottom up and lack support from the C-suite and VP-levels of the company, despite a company wide push to increase "quality". However it seems that these bottom efforts are largely missed or passed over because they don't have easy answers. The incentives remain to be constantly aiming for getting to the next milestone rather than developing for long term success and sustainable development. Very hard to have any impact on most projects if you aren't a senior engineer or higher up the food chain. Understaffing, engineers are constantly being pulled in multiple directions. Whether it's by multiple projects or a huge amount of work to get done. The company feels chronically understaffed with absolutely no desire to either hire more people or and no incentive to work more efficiently. The goal of never having to lay anyone off in the event of a recession is admirable, but not sustainable because as long as some competitor is willing to lay people off they can have your cake and eat it too. Layoffs are also a good opportunity to send off underperformers. There seems to be no incentive to fire or discipline employees except in the most extreme cases, and even then some pretty toxic people have been allowed to stay around due to loyalty. You can absolutely do the bare minimum and get away with it.