PTC reviews

Overall very cliquish and political; too many stuffed shirts in senior management, treating the people who do the work and make the money like serfs laboring in the fields, rather than as valued resources. Too much lip service and hypocrisy in areas like "work-life balance", and "development", when the reality you see on the ground is to drive everyone as hard as possible, and give as little as possible in return. The annual review process is a joke, lots of time wasted on eye-wash, when the reality is that promotions and monetary rewards are based on things other than performance. Lots of really outstanding resources are leaving because they're tired of being treated like ****.

You are always living on a quarter-to-quarter basis. The highest level of effort you can bring to the job will often be seen as "barely adequate" by your supervisor. There is no such thing as management feedback for the purpose of personal development. Most managers completely ignore the official HR performance review process. Praise consists of back-handed compliments, such as "you did good this time, but you should have done much better." The overall attitude is "we will never be good enough." This pervasive culture of negativity is probably a holdover from the company's poor performance over the last decade (even though the company is doing quite well now). The deeper problem is that success is not its own reward at PTC. There is no reveling in your accomplishments here. You can never do enough. This is not the place to build a career AND live a life you love... unless you don't care for life outside of work.