Pros
The technology is interesting and the workday challenges are entertaining to work through. Most of the non-executive people have a good level of commitment to do their jobs and skill at their respective positions. It is a great experience to stretch my comfort zone and I can develop flexible, useful skills I would not get elsewhere. There is a great story to be told concerning the product development and its association with the military.
Cons
The level of turnover is mindboggling for a company, particularly a small company. It seems like the company is run like episodes of the Apprentice – “you didn’t perform today, you are fired!” Management seems to feel they can get the next person to apply for the job and see how it goes for the next episode. Due to the ridiculous size of the revolving door, there is no base core of competency in any of the functional groups in the organization. The working level (non-executives) of the company is populated by people with tenures of less than two years, most less than one year. All groups have experienced near 100% turnover in the past few years. All of the tribal knowledge is gone as is the real expertise in the different areas. This effect cuts across all functions; technical, sales, marketing and technical service. No industry superstars or rising stars will touch this company with a long pole. The turnover is easily verified by looking at the number of former employees that show up on different professional networking websites. Often times you can see their duration of employment with this company as well. The technical base has been gutted and the innovative talent is gone. Those who developed the military products were terminated or have left. The innovative development projects that led to the inception of the current product line were shut down and nothing has replaced them. With current management it is an exercise of leveraging the existing products and getting as much money as possible for those. If a sales person can’t sell fast enough, then they are given a pink slip, unless they fall under the protected category, in which case they can be nonproductive and remain with the company. The lack of professionalism within the leadership of the company is evident when you step into the office. Loud vulgar language in the office space is the norm, not the exception. The volume increases when the CEO is in the office for his visits from NY. Putting the executives together in a room results in a loud, emotionally charged “discussion” with each feeding off of the other. There is no voice of reason, leadership and maturity to slow the escalating emotion in the discussions and return the conversation to the foundation of corporate functionality. The results of the emotionally charged discussions are knee-jerk, emotionally based responses, hence the near constant change in direction and inconsistent personnel changes. There is no HR management. Two VPs of HR have been let go in the past twelve months. That fact alone points to the tip of an iceberg. The leadership of the company has faltered.