Pros
Zebra in Vernon Hills provides a fast-paced, interesting work environment for people in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, technical writing, technical support, or related fields with a plenty of room for advancement into project and product management. There's always a challenge around the next corner, a new problem to solve, or a new product to get to market.
Management has been very good about allowing people time to attend to their personal lives, including working from home whenever that is possible. This flexibility makes it more likely for you to want to work harder and easier for you to put in extra time on those occasions where a project is running full steam ahead toward major deadlines. Good job reviews lead to nice yearly raises. Award and patent plaques line the engineering hallways.
Zebra recently made a more liberal vacation policy that allows people up to 4 weeks off per year, plus a week of sick time per calendar year. The benefits through Blue Cross/Blue Shield are decent, as are the vision and dental benefits. As you could imagine, they would all be better if they were free, but they're still not too bad.
It can be nice to be a big fish in a small pond. Because Zebra is a smaller company, you frequently get chances to work outside of your job description to meet new customer or market demands. Overall, we have great products and incredibly talented people, making this one of the best places to work.
Cons
Zebra is a little top-heavy with upper management, who seems to be making decisions solely to please stock holders, not to keep the best employees. A few managers who have been in engineering forever can be jerks, and they have a relatively high turnover compared to other managers.
Zebra is in the process of moving manufacturing to China, so people in engineering are not 100% sure if they will have jobs in a year or two. That has led to a bit of a decrease in morale in the last year. Management would do well to forget about maximizing profits and to just focus on making the best products on the market.
