Pros
There are no Pros associated with this employer.
Cons
STI Technologies is a small minority owned company. The leadership is retired in place. The company has no documented processes or procedures. Job title inflation is rampant. Open requisitions that are advertised as Senior Engineering positions are actually low level help desk Technicians. Logisticians are actually warehouse Material Handlers. Site Leads have Program Manager Titles. The overwhelming majority of the work force is limited to a high school education in spite of the lofty job titles. There is no career path with this employer. The company lacks career development and training programs. Compensation is 25% to 30% below the local norm for the advertised professional positions. Yearly cost of living raises are small to nonexistent. Occasionally an employee will be informed that he or she is now employed by a subcontractor as opposed to being employed by STI. The move, or badge flip, usually involves a reduction in compensation and loss of accrued benefits. Information in this organization flows in only one direction, from the top down. If an employee attempts to escalate an issue, or questions a leadership decision, the employee is publicly admonished and reminded that the leadership has all the knowledge and requires no input from the working class. The employees are discouraged from communicating with STI management and government Program Management personnel by first line supervisors. The morale is low and employees lack initiative which in turn leads to complaints of poor performance from the government. Customer complaints are ignored by management. The technical leadership openly shuns work that requires the application of mathematics. The few tasks requiring actual engineering skills are purposely ignored in the hope that they will just go away. Honestly, I could not make this up if I tried. Management views employees as temporary hires for the duration of the government contract. Employees can expect the government to cancel STI’s contract mid-way through the period of performance. When a contract is canceled all employees on the contract are involuntarily terminated with no severance package or assistance. Compensation for unused vacation is limited to 40 hours. Vacation hours over 40 are forfeited. There are indications of financial difficulties and mismanagement. Reimbursement for business trips can take as long as 6 months. Money withheld from paychecks for employee 401K accounts is deposited at random intervals, 2 to 4 months late. Pay checks are occasionally in error. All inquiries in regard to financial issues receive the same preverbal response, “The check is in the mail”.
