Having spent several years here in engineering, I feel like I've gained a solid, realistic perspective on how the company actually operates, which is why I want to share this feedback.
When I first started, the environment was great. It was defined by strong teamwork, genuine excitement about building new things, and a real willingness to teach each other. Over time, though, it feels like we've really lost that culture.
Once you've been here long enough to see past the initial honeymoon phase, a few troubling trends become really obvious:
1. Extreme management politics: Too often, it feels like leadership sets up departments to compete instead of collaborate. It's incredibly frustrating to get caught in the middle of political turf wars between managers when you're just trying to focus on your work and complete a project.
2. Blame instead of root-cause problem solving: As engineers, we are trained to look at the root cause of a failure to fix the system. Unfortunately, the culture here prioritizes finding a scapegoat over finding a solution. This has created an environment where people are genuinely afraid to flag technical issues or speak up about risks because they're worried about retaliation.
3. Deep departmental divides: There is a real issue here with cliques. Instead of working as one team to build a great product, departments treat each other like rivals.
You see it every day-Quality and Production don't get along, and Engineering and Planning are constantly at odds, which makes things very inefficient.
