Okay
Verbesserungsvorschläge
- To be able to better leverage tech: Inventorize what strategic goals and challenges you have, and which ones you could tackle with tech. Create a small set of tech/data use cases. Go over them to further determine objectives and KPIs, but also requirements, (hidden) assumptions, resources needed, robustness to future market changes, etc. This all before deciding on some specific next-quarter goal with a specific implementation.
- Have more outward focus, check what is the standard in the industry. Not by checking with some incidental local companies, but checking recent literature as well as looking at what's known of companies in a similar domain/market, with similar problems.
- Align KPIs across the company
- Consider temporary project-based teams
Kommunikation
Top-level communication is fine, but on a layer lower, in some areas there could be better transparency regarding roadmap creation.
Additionally, horizontal communication could be better on some cross-team projects.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
I didn't experience political games.
Work-Life-Balance
There is not much overtime work.
WFH possible on 4 of the 5 days per week.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
The "soft" behaviour of the actual managers is fine.
One deficit is an overall organizational setup that renders some managers a bit moot. In some domains managers are not the ones making decisions or setting goals. Whereas other people, not necessarily managers, make many decisions (also affecting someone's career) without necessarily being transparent or consulting others, but are not judged on that.
Interessante Aufgaben
There is too much artificial barrier between product and tech. Overall there is lack of knowledge and expertise regarding translating business goals to tech solutions. Hence the possibilities of tech are not always well leveraged. This especially relates to the area of ML / data science.
In some teams, there's the classical problem that a lack of attention for more fundamental improvements leads to many ad-hoc issues.
Gleichberechtigung
Salary ranges are transparent. I haven't experienced discrimination.
Umwelt-/Sozialbewusstsein
They do pay lip service and do small things like Mülltrennung but some people with important positions openly play golf, which is hilariously environmentally unfriendly (carbon footprint, water usage, land usage). The funny thing is that they're quite open about it too. There are words to describe this attitude which you can probably come up with yourself.
Gehalt/Sozialleistungen
Ok, but: no pension plan, and no bonuses (aside from low ad-hoc ones).
Image
The company has barely any image in the tech realm, which makes hiring more difficult than average.
It is one of the rare cases in which the reality is more interesting than the image.
There's quite some woke stuff, but you aren't forced to participate (no forced mentioning of pronouns or something like that).
Karriere/Weiterbildung
The career steps are quite clear. There is educational budget. Performance reviews are extensive.
Generally in tech, there's lots of emphasis to learn from other more senior people in the company, as opposed to consult external resources. This doesn't always work though. Because the complement of skills (a deficiency of person A versus an expertise of person B) can be very limited in size. And it creates a bit of tunnel vision. Encouraging more external focus would be beneficial.