Strong team culture - Software Engineer Fuse Integration Employee Review

I would like to respond to this section from a recent review. "The company claims that it is productized. As one of only 3 MechEs working in the company, working heavily on the bread and butter, none of it productized. It is a highly advanced prototype. Looking at the definition of "productization," most stuff within this company is not easily repeatable. There is no standard process for building anything in production. It is coming off the memory of the production team to make the cables, electronic assy, etc. From what I have seen, no work instructions were present during the assy process, which sparked a quality inspection review on mechanical designs after products failed or were returned for failure. It was eventually shown that there was a lack of following the work instructions and that everything was fine with the mechanical design." We have a standard Work instruction for the product, and it is repeatable. To see a review blatantly lie about this is disgusting and fraudulent considering we are ISO9001 compliant, and Production is audited quite frequently. We have spent many hours developing our process ensure repeatability is optimized. Continuous improvement is always a part of the process so when we find shortfalls it is addressed and fixed. We also have the necessary tooling needed for our product and we always seek to expand this when value necessitates it. As for the quality review it is always important to review all parts of the process which includes design. This doesn't mean design is wrong or the individuals behind it are incapable. It's just important all parts are inspected to identify and correct the root cause. Some individuals just get wrapped up with themselves and get easily offended when anything they do or make is questioned. As to other things implicated in his review, the splinters would be accurate. Fuse also does have fire inspections regularly as required. Not sure why he is saying bringing your dog in is a con because he has done it a few times. Guess it's only a pro when it applies to him.

No cons, this was just to address a recent review

The individual contributors and engineering managers are genuinely talented, hardworking people who care about their work and each other. If you’re early in your career, there are real learning opportunities and good mentorship at the peer and manager level. The technical work itself is engaging, and working with the warfighters is rewarding.

Leadership is failing this company, and most engineers know it. The core problem is the business model. Leadership wins contracts by promising fast and cheap. While they spin it as a competitive advantage, the cost is being paid by the engineers delivering the work. Nights, weekends, personal sacrifices. Seemingly endless sprints aren’t the exception, they’re the norm. That’s not a growth strategy, it’s a slow bleed. You can only burn through so many people before the talent walks and the reputation follows. Engineering isn’t involved in the RFP process, which means unrealistic timelines are baked in before engineers even know the project exists. “Decentralized decision-making” is something leadership says, not something they do. In practice, decisions funnel through the top regardless of who the actual SME is. Engineering managers are not empowered to make final decisions within their own domain, and the engineers/ICs beneath them aren’t either. The people closest to the work have the least say in how it gets done. Accountability is applied selectively. When engineering drops the ball, it’s loud and public. When the problem traces back to another department, it quietly disappears. People notice. There is a visible nepotism problem. A number of long-tenured employees have accumulated seniority and promotions that are difficult to reconcile with their actual qualifications. Rather than being held accountable, they continue to advance and hire direct reports to absorb the work everyone around them knows they can’t do. Engineering sees it clearly. Leadership either doesn’t or doesn’t care. The all-hands meetings are a biweekly reminder of how disconnected senior leadership is from the daily reality of their people. Attendance is low because ICs who are grinding don’t want to sit through a polished performance that glosses over the very problems they’re living. You can tell a lot by who shows up in person. Nothing illustrated the disconnect more clearly than the first meeting back after the end of year review. Bonuses and raises had been generally low across the company. Then, the first major announcement back was that upper management had promoted themselves from Directors to VPs. Even if it was a title change only, the timing and optics were abysmal. They chose to celebrate themselves at a time when company morale was approaching all-time lows. You can’t manufacture that kind of tone-deafness.