That freedom comes with a healthy dose of responsibility and an expectation that you will manage yourself with minimal feedback. In practice, that means you don't know you're on the wrong track until it's too late, then you get blamed for everything.
An extremely gross and toxic work culture - one so bad that the State AG filed a massive lawsuit against them for discriminatory practices - just Google the company name and/or its CEO Peter Zieve and you'll get a taste of what went down there.
Being paired with more decent people is a complete luck of the draw.
The company was shielded from the more normal financial constraints of the business world for a long time because of a high barrier to entry into the market. However, that seems to be changing more and more, and a company that was used to throwing money around now finds itself tightening its belt. Things have gotten ugly. Pay cuts, suspension of bonuses, etc.
Major business decisions have increasingly fallen on a reckless CEO who is clearly out of his element, shielded from consequences by decades of prosperity for which he can't really claim much credit in creating. The company's misguided sense of "we're not like the other guys" means they refuse to take in outside talent for upper management, and as the old guard dwindles, a more and more prominent succession crisis makes itself known.
I strongly recommend that Engineers looking for work avoid this place at all costs.
