Software Engineering Institute Reviews

The leadership at this place has been described as "Dilbertian". Upper management is so out of touch with its workforce, the direction of the industry, and the morale of its staff. A heavy layer of middle management exists solely to do song and dance routines to the upper management; not to actually manage. I can expect a one-on-one conversation with my direct manager once every six months or so, and that's only because I initiate it. Our contracting rates are incredibly high due to enormous overhead (lots of middle management and support staff), so a lot of contracts are on arbitrary/bogus government projects that simply exist to burn money in someone's budget. It's demoralizing when you spend 6, 8, or 12 months working on a project only to have the government customer all but throw away the deliverables at the end. No thank you's, no feedback, no mental reward. It's not an isolated occurrence, either; it's happened to almost every project I've seen. It's very demotivating, and it's engrained into the culture here. My raises haven't even been on par with inflation since I started despite great performance reviews every year. Turnover has been high, and the talent that's coming in doesn't come close to matching the talent that's leaving.

When looking at all the things you should NOT do when running an organization, this place does ALL of them. - The leadership is non-existent. CEO and CTO are constantly traveling (i.e., they might be in the office 3 days out of a month) and have absolutely no interest in the employee base. To that end, the stories of harassment, discrimination, etc. coming from the top are almost constant. - Nothing is confidential. Don't go to HR because they'll spread everything they know throughout the organization. They're like a bunch of high school girls looking for drama. - This is the only place I've ever worked where people treat others terribly, if not inhumanely, and absolutely nothing is done. If you go to HR for help, they say they need "proof", and then start spreading around that you complained about so and so. - The leadership has put so much fear into the masses, that morale is non-existent and people look like they're going to throw up before they walk into a meeting with the top brass. - Lying and bullying are commonplace. Nobody can avoid it. Nobody is held accountable for their actions, so bad behaviors run rampant. - Work is stagnant and definitely not cutting edge. Nicely put, it's boring. Old men who've been there for 30 years ride the coattails of "good" work they did 30 years ago....and get paid a hefty sum to sit and do nothing. - To that end, there are so many useless people in undefined positions who pretend to be important. They really need to weed out the workforce and keep the people who actually contribute (preferably before they quit, like most worthy people end up doing.) - The most frightening part is that this is taxpayer money. And it's all being spent on essentially nothing. So, if you want to go to work everyday and get paid to do absolutely nothing, and sit in your office and gossip all day, this might be your place. However, be careful because the vultures will zero in on you and run you out of there if they don't like you. I honestly hope other departments at CMU aren't run like this, because if so, CMU is in trouble.