The owner micromanages his engineers. Very prone to tantrums (shouting, swearing, throwing things). He has no real engineering training and has pretty big gaps in his knowledge, but always thinks he knows best. Frequently throws out months or years of work on a whim. Forces engineers to work on ideas that they know are obviously not going to work.
Managers vary pretty significantly. About half will also scream at employees, but the other half will generally be reasonable. Unfortunately you have little to no control over who you work for. Engineers start of working in "RnD" which is really just sustaining engineering. There's no real training for new engineers, but expect to get screamed at in front of the group for making any kind of mistake. The owner loses his mind over people doing testing, using real equipment etc. (people are afraid to let him see them doing math).
The general atmosphere of the place is one of fear and defeat. If the owner wants to pursue a bad idea, basically every path will lead to you getting yelled at, your only control is what for. It's a depressing place to be.
There's a factory shutdown for about a week and a half, which is mandatory time off mostly unpaid. Employee satisfaction survey results were largely ignored or they totally missed the point e.g. people asked for more vacation, the company gave one more paid day during the shutdown. Cost of living pay raises were totally thrown out the window. The highest possible annual raise is 6% (a perfect employee), expect something closer to 3%.
