Vantaggi
Great People within direct team. Supportive local bosses. (In Longwall division) Good exposure to mentors and on the job learning.
Svantaggi
Structure of company gets in the way of actually spending time/effort on core duty work tasks. Very difficult to nail down what your ACTUAL core duties are, this is partly as a result of absorbing roles of those who have left without replacement and general lack of direction. Lack of interest in new technology and follow-through on proper processes to delivery the world-leading results that they continually tell you about. Very little QA or testing, many products rushed for delivery and then fine tuned with end user (sometimes for years after delivery) Pay well below industry average, and cash-withheld "bonus" system created which you have very little control over, has negative impact on engagement. "Total Package" figure is not as promised, advise only to budget using base salary amount. Global workforce has massive trouble communicating, collaboration is nearly impossible. Many attempts by local management to fix this over the years but only negative progress made. Lack of training in field of engineering, too much training in company self-promotion and branding. Work-life balance and flexibility not possible in certain roles due to company policy to not replace outgoing employees. Company clearly more interested in manufacturing globally and as cheaply as possible. This is fine but the deletion of local workshops and support staff mean that local customers will suffer from massive leadtimes and CAT are unwilling to stock sufficient spares to avoid this. Despite constant reminders of CAT Brand Promise which cannot possibly be backed up even with the current local support. Almost certain engineering and engineering management portions of my job would have been transitioned to China or India within 12months. I feel genuine sorrow for my former colleagues who are still at CAT, my advice is to get out and MAYBE return in 5-10yrs when/if they sort out this part of the business.