Smart people working on lousy software under terrible management
Pros
Work with smart people around the world. Some managers are really awesome. Work from home. Ann Arbor office is close to Zingerman's bakehouse / coffee shop.
Cons
No work/life balance or respect for worker's interests/career development. Software engineers are pulled off product development to help with consulting projects. 60-80 hours per week trying to meet arbitrary, unrealistic deadlines. As each deadline is missed, the stakes get higher but the process repeats every 6 months (with pep talks). PTC grows revenue by acquiring companies and then duct taping all of their products together into a "solution". Looks great on PowerPoint, but in reality is a band-aided mess of software with different architectures that requires constant energy to keep working. Lots of conference calls staring at PowerPoints, but everyone is trying to keep up with their email and only half paying attention to the meeting. There is an expectation that you check email at night and weekends, and are probably working. Senior management only concerned with stock price and their bonuses. Bonuses for upper management are great, there is nothing for "individual contributors". Worse, they set up a bonus for workers, but then didn't pay out bonuses to workers while the executives got their full bonuses. The company has a lot of VPs that are very ambitious but not very competent. That makes it a very stressful and confusing place to work. There are some great managers who do what they can to shield their people from the mess, but they are also treated terribly by the company.