Pros
- Working on trains is cool. - 401k is competitive (5% match). - Executive leadership does plan one BBQ and one Christmas party each year that are actually fun for the whole company plus family members. - You get the week of Christmas off for holiday shutdown after you’ve been there a year - Free, good coffee with great espresso machine
Cons
- A lot of engineering (most?) got annual pay increases of 1% or 1.5% going into 2021, a 4.5% inflation year. - I got 0% of a 10% bonus in my contract without ever getting sat down to discuss why until I scheduled one myself and found out I wasn't getting a bonus. - Work flexibility is nonexistent. Whether you're on the production floor or an engineering manager, you have to use your badge to clock in at a time clock. You also have to track your project hours in real time at your laptop/the time clock. There is no way to retroactively go back and reassign your project hours. If you missed a clock-in, you have to send a request for your manager to approve your clock-in. You must clock out for lunch or an hour is automatically deducted from your workday. - Work from home generally not acceptable. If you have work to do, it must be done from the office whether it's capable of being done at home or not. Some people get granted WFH but you have to be discreet about it and hide from colleagues. - Poor planning when it comes to workload. You'll often get assignments that are due in two days that would often generally take a week to do. There will be nobody to defend you when this happens, even your manager, because it happens so often and "it is work that needs to be done." - Almost everybody in a leadership role is Swiss because for one reason or another. Whether they're excellent in their role or not, one thing is certain: they do not promote many Americans. When a position becomes vacant, expect somebody from Switzerland to come occupy that position instead of someone local. - Project Management gets final say in anything that has to do with their projects. If your performance isn't on par with the Project Managers expectations, there's been many cases of PMs replacing workers with a German/Swiss/European equivalent. This would be okay if the purpose of this was to get the US facility trained, but this was not the case. - No mentorship. - Health insurance was bad. $3k deductible with $5.5k out-of-pocket max. - Parental leave was borderline offensive. 5 days paternal/maternal leave granted if written letter is approved by HR + Supervisor 30 days ahead of time. Those 5 days can only be taken AFTER birth, and must be used consecutively. In addition, however, mothers get 60% of salary using Short Term Disability for maximum 12 weeks. - Not many team building events within groups to get to know team better unless you plan them yourself with coworkers.