Wall street comes first, stereotypical large corporate culture - Senior Software Engineer John Deere Employee Review

1.0
Nov 15, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good people on the whole, solid product legacy. Variety of products and type of work - you can pursue a wide ranging career. Even though it's a big company and the senior leadership/HR might not be the most caring , mid-western values still exist on a local level. People are friendly and supportive of each other and their needs for the most part.

Cons

The company prioritizes the stock price above all else. Shareholder Value Added is the key decision factor used. Stock buybacks, prioritizing initiatives that matter to the "tech" investor (to justify a higher stock price/earnings ratio), reducing employee compensation w.r.t. productivity, moving labor to lower cost markets etc. are all strategies the leadership has used in the recent past. The board, the CEO and senior leadership are compensated in stock to different extents but the regular salary or wage employee isn't. The stock purchase plan that exists doesn't offer any incentives. The current CEO is a former consultant and his big "Smart Industrial Reorg" initiative was taken straight from a BCG playbook. The push to move labor overseas to reduce cost has resulted in fewer co-located teams that have ownership of anything. The work environment is not as fun or rewarding. Unless you are part of the "tech stack" good luck getting budget to develop new features. The customer and what matters to them is ignored unless it could result in more income for the company. The company spends a lot of resources on restricting right to repair, restricting the customers access to their data or what they can do with it, etc. There is a general disconnect between the senior leadership and workforce. The local management doesn't have much say in things (you can't ask your manager for a raise for example). It's becoming more and more apparent that this is in the end a large corporate entity and the regular employee should do as they are told.

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5.0
Jul 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Money was above average for industry

Cons

Leadership deteriorated due to influx of people

3.0
Jun 18, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Interesting problems and good access to latest tools to do the job. Motivated coworkers

Cons

Upper management is absurdly disconnected from doing anything remotely valuable. They are useless. All vision and innovation comes from the lowest levels. We really don't need directors and above at this company - they take large salaries and promote the idiots instead of the innovators.

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