You will be overloaded with work. You will have 10 different programs to work, and never any time to do well on any of them. Expect to be stopped constantly and expected to jump for whatever someone wants immediately, despite your priorities. They do not give raises or promotions. The few raises they give average (not for me, but for everyone) 1% to 1.5% a year. If you are a Band 3 employee (Eng. 1, Eng. 2, Eng. 3, Sr. Eng.), you will work your tail off to ensure that the Band 4 employees get their bonuses. Everything at the 34th St. location is centered around the Project & Program people getting their bonuses. If you are technical, you are not important. Project & Program people will set unrealistic expectations, technically, financially and expected completion date for projects without discussing with the people who make the work happen. They will sign contracts for these impossible requirements and dates with late penalties tied to them ($20,000 per day that you are late, for example). You are then expected to make it happen by that date and under budget. If you don't, you are in a position where you may be fired. If you make it, the Project & Program people (Band 4) all get fat bonuses and you will be lucky to get 1.5% raise at the end of the year. You exist as a Band 3 employee to make everyone else successful. My first year here, after agreeing on a salary, I came in and they took 10% of everyone's pay that year. They also did not purchase office supplies, cut back 401K, cut back on insurance, etc. The next year, the raises averaged 2.5%, the 3rd year it averaged 2%, the next 2 years everyone's raises were 0% (except for Band 4 employees, they all had 0% raises, but received huge bonuses), and this year the average raise was 1.5%. People are leaving all of the time because you can easily make between 33% to 50% more salary at another company doing the same work. Raises are determined in a "totem-pole" meeting that only Band 4 people are invited to. They sit around and discuss every single employee in the department and assign you to a place on the totem-pole. Of course, the Band 4 employees are always at the top, because they make the decision. Then, there is a pot of money of a certain size, and then they go down from top to bottom deciding raise amounts. When you make $120k per year (for example) 6% to 8% raises (and even upwards of 10% at times) eats up a lot of that money quickly. After all of the Band 4 people get their raises, there is not very much money left, so the Band 3 employees get the scraps, based on totem-pole ranking. Everyone will tell you that if you want to make money, you have to leave the company and either stay away, or then come back later to get hired in at a higher salary. Sticking it out will keep you near your starting salary. In the 6 years I have been here, the three small raises I have received (summed together) has not even made up the 10% they took from that first year.
