Great people, impactful technology but years of transformation strategy have taken a toll
Pros
The people. I have worked with incredibly talented people who are driven, innovative, action oriented, ethical, and wonderful to work with. The technology has many advantages and has features that are often not used efficiently or that get managed away in larger organizations making the tech look brittle and inflexible. It's not - you can throw bad code at big data using the platform but a mild amount of design does go a long way. Teradata has been around for more than a minute and tends to adopt some of the newer, more innovative ideas of other vendors in a moderately measured way. "It just works" is a key phrase I've often heard from customers even at times when they were tightening costs on the platform.
Cons
The biggest constant is change and no company stands still. It's a good thing in aggregate but I feel like in transforming Teradata has lost some of its identity. The company has made calls in staff reductions, resource allocations, engineering investments, and other areas that I don't think work for the company as it exists now in the real world with its real customers. I hope the pursuit of vision and growth continues, but with an appreciation of the role of what WAS and IS guiding it.
