Good place to work and learn practical engineering skills
Pros
- Flexible working hours. - Hands on work environment. New engineers will learn very practical skills and experience the foibles of their own designs. Makes for powerful learning. - Lots of freedom for self direction in work. (double edged sword, see cons) - Good benefits. - Good salary raises for employees that perform reasonably well. 15-20% raises on about a 18-24 month cycle are fairly common for employees in the 0-10 year tenure range. - Extra pay for overtime. Not 1.5X, but an established bonus plan for overtime pay for salaried employees. - Very good profit sharing after about 5 years. It grows steadily with tenure. - Laid back work environment. - Company culture is very family oriented. Flexible work time is wonderful for the uncertainties associated with raising children.
Cons
- Starting pay is low. Salaries can hang below average for 3-5 years which is intolerable for some. - Lots of freedom for self direction in work = not very thorough guidance and mentor ship for new engineers. #1 complaint at Electroimpact. Many other companies put new engineers through a battery of training courses for months into the beginning of employment. At Electroimpact the guidance is not pre-arranged or mandatory, it often must be sought out from more experience colleagues. This works well for some and not well for many others. - Easy to become a workahlolic and burn out. This could happen anywhere, but there are really no mechanisms at Electroimpact to counter this. No manager will tell you to slow it down or limit overtime in my experience over the past 8 years. Consistent with company culture, this is left up to the individual to regulate, so beware. On the inverse I've also never experienced a manager requiring overtime. So it goes both ways.
