Ericsson reviews

I work in Ericsson San Jose, which used to be Redback Networks until 2007. Just about all of the original management and most of the key contributors were chased out over the last several years. Most of the senior management was brought over from Ericsson in Sweden and other places. A great premium is paid for conformity and compliance with the "Ericsson Way". The place is run like a bureaucracy and even senior technical managers are essentially allowed to work no more than as "administrators". Right politics with HQ in Sweden trumps skills and hard work. Great deal of "us vs. them" adversarial culture. Executive management is essentially in an echo chamber with almost no first hand feel for what is going on at the troop level. It is customary to "dummy down" what is presented to the top management in San Jose and above that in Sweden. With P&L converging at company's president level (there are no GMs at VP or director levels), the governance structure is like a rats nest. Engineering and marketing operate as arch nemesis and none has incentive to cooperate. For operational management and governance, there is a hierarchy of "support" groups which end up acting as data collectors for the executive management. With executive management out of touch, this opens doors for mismanagement and what can be best described as graft. A company next door reportedly had resume from more than 50% of the Ericsson San Jose employees. This is not a typo or exaggeration. A career quagmire for skilled ambitious types.

Lots of creative, tech-minded, world changers joined the North American company by believing the marketing material. Then after a while they slowly realize it is the same as other companies: Sustainability is a green-washing term, others will take credit for your creativity and accomplishments, and those with constructive criticism will be managed out of the organization.