Disappointing leadership wasting great potential - Engineer nLIGHT Employee Review

1.0
Oct 25, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Some absolute gems as far as people (engineers, production staff, first level managers, etc.) go. Those are the people that work hard and try to make a difference with improvements. Cool technological capabilities.

Cons

Largely political. Advancement does not happen based on merit or effort, rather only if you make it into the inner circle of the CEO or the circles of those within his circle. New ideas, or even just tried and true better ideas are largely ignored because it's not the idea coming from the inner circle of egos (including engineering, finance, sales, and operations). The leadership is a large group of yes-men/women that continue to make the same mistakes while getting rewarded with large stock awards as the company deteriorates. Funny thing is they have to continuously increase the awards to keep people around because the stock is just going down, which continues the death spiral. Stock price is currently about half of the IPO price after more than 5 years. Clearly the leadership is not good enough to run the business effectively. Layoffs every 3ish years in an attempt to become profitable, yet profitability has not been predicted in the near future each time. Still to this day, not profitable nor predicted to be for at least 2 years. Hard workers and people that actively try to improve business systems, processes, designs, tactics, culture all get overworked and beat until there is nothing left. Turnover rates have been ridiculously high for years which then piles more responsibility onto those that actually know what they are doing. Culture continues to be toxic for most people. Staffing is continuously poor, and everybody is always asked to do more with less.

Explore other reviews about nLIGHT

5.0
Jun 15, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Really great people who are down to earth and brilliant, and generally just nice to work with with.

Cons

Can’t really think of anything too negative

5.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

great company to work for, friendly environment !

Cons

It’s cold in Colorado in the winter, beautiful otherwise

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