This feedback is not for whole of Philips but limited to the legacy imaging lab I was part of.
- As per the JD, I was hired as Sr. Architect but the real work that was already planned for me was to do tons of process documentation
- The JD had a passing reference to documentation along with several other buzz words so you would never suspect that documentation alone would be 95% of your work. In fact the JD said the position is for client/server architect but upon joining I was told you are client architect + system architect. System architect is undefined and involves all the coordination work rather than technical work.
- The real work in the lab is done by scrum masters, architects & team members. There are bunch of people manager who are all paper tigers. They don't contribute much to the release except for updating status for which they are always dependent on scrum masters.
- It was a services organization behind R&D label. The focus was always on delivery. No focus on innovation or modernizing the product.
- The services mentality was obvious from the fact that despite of being a captive R&D unit of Philips, you have to fill time-sheets. So far I have worked with 3 R&D labs and no where except at Philips I had to fill time-sheet. Its not the time-sheet in itself which is an issue. Its the mentality behind that which shows how is the business run.
- The whole world knows meetings are anti-productivity activities. But on a lean day I would have 3-4 hours of meetings and on worst day it would be 8 hours of meeting. Imagine an individual contributor spending 50% time in meetings on an average.
- The planning exercise is also wasteful. 150 engineers would spend 1-2 days in planning / quarter. Worst, in a couple of weeks that planning would be waste as nothing would go as per plan. Total loss of 1200 to 2400 hours of productive time.
Overall my experience has been very very bad. By publishing a misleading JD and using me to get below par clerical work done, Philips has lost all my respect and trust on this brand. This was the worst 1 year of my career.
