Pros
- Management: At least in my case it looks like management is sincere about wanting us to grow and they provide good guidance. Very smart and insightful and heavy-weight in terms of industry experience. - People in our team have been around forever (15-20+ years) which tells me that they're being taken care of (or just waiting on the pension? :-) - People in power engineering seem to be of high caliber and are very well rounded with lots of industry experience - Being part of a company that was founded by Edison and that contributed so much to the world is a good thing. Big name. - Pension - Flexibility: working from home is ok
Cons
- Cheap: One striking thing I noticed very soon after joining the company is that the culture here promotes being CHEAP. There is a difference between frugal and cheap, GE is Cheap. - Benefits: No bonuses, no stock options, no employee ESPP. Just your salary. - Fat: It feels as if there are too many people doing the same thing. During my interview process several months ago, so many people contacted me for the same thing, I thought that was odd but it stops there. However after I joined and a few months in now, I see the same thing. There is a lot of overlap in certain areas, too many chefs cooking the same meal, and not enough communication which is annoying. - Age: This is big. The majority of folks in our department are in their 40's and 50's. There don't seem to be a balance at all. Older folks have more experience and wisdom and are absolutely great to have around, they are strong pillars, however with age people grow to be more conservative and less of risk takers and not as fresh on creativity which tends to make things slow and shackled. There needs to be a balance in age otherwise we risk losing our edge. - IT: IT is really backwards. Network is slow and problematic, software/systems/processes are way too complicated to do anything. Some local networks are a mess. My desk phone is from the early 90's. My computer is old and slow and runs 10,000 services. - Complexity: Too much crippling bureaucracy. - Speed: things are VERY slow here. Takes forever to do anything. - Fragmentation: Teams seem to be fragmented all over the place, in different states, and cities. The lack of physical presence leads to a lack of communication and lack of effectiveness. Being available on chat is not enough. People need to be physically present to connect and establish contact and rapport. You can't build relationships over the phone or chat. - Communication: I don't feel that team members communicate effectively and enough around.