At Corporate, the environment is toxic. The CEO considers himself a visionary, but he's a bully who doesn't like to hear "no" and will dress down employees in meetings. This fosters a culture in which no one wants to report any bad news. He also meddles in the development process, causing delays in completing work, which leads to more bad news he doesn't want to hear and no one is willing to address. The corporate culture also includes a reluctance to address mistakes or subpar performance or inappropriate behavior, because it's treated as a confrontation, rather than a rational, sober discussion to correct and improve a situation. One employee, a protege of the CEO, exhibited serious anger issues over a period of years, but was never dealt with, till he barged into a meeting and threatened the CEO with physical violence and then was fired. In less serious or harmful cases, employees' work needs improvement, but managers are reluctant to bring it up. Instead, they scratch their heads about the delays in completing work. Or in the case of the development group, the exec in charge can't deal with team leaders who are insubordinate, when they refuse to do what he directs the group to do. And this all fosters a culture of blame, to find a scapegoat, rather than a solution, when an issue comes up. As far as the product goes, it's a project management methodology. It's not a unique idea, and it's a little outmoded. It's aimed at development organizations that follow a waterfall process. Customers take the business management methodology, but many have dropped the software that goes with it, since it's based on old technology, and the product owner is resistant to change. A project management application is so poor that the salespeople won't sell it, and a dashboard that goes with it has been mired in development for years, but because of the internal management problems, it's still years away from release, and once the CEO retires, it's very possible that these applications will be discontinued by his successor. Not much room for advancement, either. The company is replacing veteran employees with college interns, unloading salary and experience along with it. And some work is being sent overseas, wherever the labor costs are cheapest. On the other hand, the teams embedded with customers are probably a better bet for anyone looking for a job as a software engineer. I would not recommend this to someone looking for a job, unless it were someone right out of school and he needed something to establish some employment history and get a little experience.
