Vantaggi
- I have been working for +10 years in IT deparment; CN is really a great place to see and experiment with a lot of technologies, from mainframe (yes, still around) to Big Data, Internet of Objects, etc. You'll find all DBMS under the sun: DB2zOS, DB2 UDB, Oracle, MS SQL, SSAS, SAP BW, etc. - sometimes a challenge to understand the specificities of each, as one can imagine. With a company of this size, you have access to resources unavailable in smaller organisations. - Railway is an old (we're talking 19th century) industry. But people rarely realize how, nowadays, IT systems are critical for railway operations: CN (and its competitors) could not move as much volume on the existing rail network without the various IT systems and applications to coordinate it all, from train crews to railcars, locomotives, intermodal containers, etc. Consequently, the regular "software development life cycle (SDLC)" you see in other companies is very strict at CN. We have our "IT Control Center", operational 24/7, to make sure all apps, code promotion, etc. is running smoothly. Also, Disaster Discovery - which is often a kind of joke in other companies - is actually a well-practiced process at CN. Working at CN will teach you a lot on good practices for system operations.
Svantaggi
With the arrival of the new CEO and CIO in 2018, the culture of the IT department has changed a lot... for the worse: - The positions of 1st line IT supervisors were abolished but in many cases, the former supervisors were asked to supervise the same employees - while being striped of their title and recognition! Feels like the 80s. - Decision-taking is being removed from the teams and their experts, to be centralized to a growing hierarchy of Vice-Presidents and Assistant Vice-Presidents. For years, we used to have 2 VPs: we now have +10 VPs and AVPs and it keeps growing each month. Deciding to get trainees is managed by VPs (don't they have anything better to do?)! Even deciding to send an employee to a conference is approved by the CIO himself: one can only suppose that the 3 levels of managers below him are not smart or responsible enough to take this kind of decisions! - In late 2018/early 2019, hundreds of IT employees and consultants were sent to early retirement or fired - while the company was doing very well. They were replaced by a lot of new faces. Unfortunately, no time for knowledge transfer was planned. Employees with 20-30 years of experience were asked to leave immediately, with a box with their belongings. In many teams, the remaining people have been greatly impacted: missing knowledge/expertise, excessive work load, etc. Systems that used to be upgraded every 6 months are now sitting there, for lack of resources. Stuck in impossible situations, some long-time CN employees are starting to leave the company - which was predictable. - IT Projects used to be run very tightly at CN: assigned resources, project plans, budget, etc. With all the HR reorgs and loss of experienced employees, IT project management is really the shadow of what it used to be. Projects are stopped or constantly reorganized, after burning a lot of money and delivering nothing... - Finally, a lot of really ambitious IT projects (Big Data, Data Hubs, etc.) are started at the same time, in the greatest confusion. Decisions are delayed or soon reversed after they are taken... Very difficult to get answers, understand the vision and how it can be executed in a coherent manner. Welcome to chaos :-)
