software engineer

engineer

release engineer

senior software engineer

software test engineer

General-Motors

I worked the afternoon/night shift at GM. This was one of the worst and most depressing jobs I have ever had. 

The culture of General Motors is very similar to a prison environment. Management treats you like a child, and will make split-second, last-minute decisions that affect your time and your life without even consulting you. You could be told 20 minutes before it was time to clock out, that you would be staying another few hours. There was nothing you could do about this. (Most people working there also had children, so having no advance notice could really affect them).

The company would put out media announcements regarding layoffs BEFORE IT EVEN TOLD THE EMPLOYEES THEY WERE BEING LAID OFF. Imagine your family and friends knowing your job situation before YOU do. This happened often. They have absolutely no respect for their employees whatsoever.

Management spoke to us like we were children. Instead of consulting with us, giving constructive criticism, and working with us, they gave orders and yelled. When there was downtime, even if there was nothing at all to do, we were to scurry about to make it look like we were busy.

Everyone seemed to be afraid of certain people in management. And the "culture" was to just accept whatever GM dished out and "just be glad you have a job." I can't tell you how many times I heard someone say that. No matter how badly they mistreated us as employees, the majority of the people there just sucked it up and dealt with it. No one wanted to complain.

The environment itself was almost like an urban middle school. It's a factory obviously, so it's a completely open area, and you can see and interact with hundreds of people daily. This is a breeding ground for constant gossip. If you aren't the type to involve yourself in that type of childish nonsense, you're going to have a rough time, because there is nowhere for you to go to escape it -- even on breaks.

It takes almost 10 minutes just to walk out of the building to your car, so with 15-30 minute breaks (and considering your roundtrip total of walking to and from the parking lot), it's literally pointless. 

When the weather is bad, you're really out of luck. Walking into or out of the building, there is no overhead cover to shield you from the elements. You have a long walk to get into the building. We once thought they were building a shield for us when we saw construction on the walkway... and then we later found out they were just building a FENCE to keep their cars (near the walkway) protected from US. They care more about their precious cars than they do about the employees who BUILD them.

This is further demonstrated by the fact that even during a snowstorm that caused a city-wide shutdown (meaning, the city had declared that no one should be on the roads at all), GM still required us to come to work. Keep in mind that we had people commuting from cities 2 hours away. Even the state government offices were shut down that day. 

Guess what happens if you complain, even to your coworkers? They tell you to "suck it up" and "just be glad you have a job." Starting to get the theme here?

They gave us 5 sick days PER YEAR. So imagine if you had the flu for a few days in the beginning of the year. You would have no more time to take off for the rest of the year. If something comes up with your car, if you're sick, if your child is sick, or God forbid you just want to take a day off, you're stuck. It was the most depressing thing to feel trapped in that place, day after day. It really was like a prison.

The work itself is depressing as well, because it's monotonous, repetitive, and extremely boring. I became very apathetic and depressed while working there, as there was nothing to challenge my mind. I felt like my brain was turning to mush. 

Also, being on that schedule, left me very little time to sleep. I have a family, so it's not like I could just sleep all day once I got out of work in the middle of the night. I regularly went up to 48 hours without sleeping AT ALL. I was lethargic, irritable, had very low energy, and was starting to develop health issues for the first time in my life. The job was not worth it.

The pay wasn't even that great on a weekly/monthly basis. The best part was the profit sharing check, which we received once a year. 

Overall, I would NOT recommend General Motors as a good place to work, unless you enjoy cars, repetitive tasks, gossip, prison culture, no sleep, and constantly being controlled, disrespected, and treated like a child.

As an assembler, you are required to be certified at many different assembly positions.  At the Lordstown plant, you are required to assemble all of your parts within a 50-60 second window.  Typically, you will help build more than 400 cars per shift.  The work is sometimes tedious.  Ergonomically, you are forced to use just certain parts of your body to assemble the vehicle.  This causes a lot of the senior employees into worker compensation claims or FMLA circumstances.  There was a lot of artificial stress placed on front-line supervisors from management above.  It was not unusual to see foremen fired/removed from their positions, at will, because of conflicts with superiors or an inability to meet criteria or quotas that, more often than not, were not attainable.  This pressure from above was sometimes displaced directly upon the workers who did the assembly work.  Thus, most employees did not have a favorable impression about any of their superiors.  The co-workers were excellent.  Most are referred for employment by other family members.  The plant was large enough that you didn't really have to worry about nepotism.  There was a certain comradery because of the demands of the work.  The hardest part of the job is getting a routine down so that you could accomplish your tasks within the 50-60 second time frame.  During the summer months, you literally would sweat the weight off.  Thus, there is this demand that you have to be somewhat physically fit to do the jobs.  An unfortunate reality is that upper management has put such pressure on production that nearly every job is so loaded that you need nearly every 50 to 60 seconds to complete your tasks.  This gives you little time to think about what's going on, thus, the common idea that most of production employees were "factory rats."  Another negative, right now, is that General Motors continues to go through this huge flux for human resources.  Literally, it doesn't appear that they know what they're doing.  If you get referred out there, you will be a temporary employee, without any benefits, sometimes for years before being hired full time.  Then, if you are hired full time, your seniority doesn't begin until your permanent hire date.  So, let's say you worked there for three years as a temporary employee.  You could not use that three years for seniority once you became permanently employed.  The UAW isn't proactive enough to look out for its employees.  It seemed the union had no power whatsoever.  Starting pay is low for the type of work you do.  There is discussion of perhaps a five tier system under the new CEO.  I mean, do they want people to build quality American cars for $8.00 an hour?  I'm not sure what corporate leaders could be thinking.  For those who are thinking that General Motors might be a good place to be employed, let's just say that the organization is far from what it used to be.  The union is prostrate in its efforts and powers.  Management can be cruel and mean to the employees, not to mention their own management members.  Essentially, you will work for low pay and be expected to work like slaves.  Forget any type of employee retention plan.  They don't have one.

Majority of UAW workers and 95% of labor management are sneaking, behind your back when you are not around talking bad about you. Management always picks and plays who they like and dislike as far as treatment of their employees. You speak up on issues and tell the truth to them, they do not like the truth and you are a target with some hourly employees and all of management. Hard work and taking pride on your job by going well beyond your job duties at GM does not always get noticed or a certificate of award appreciation if you are not in the buddy system with management, union or other employees. Lazy workers by gender and race that squeak the loudest get taken care. Meaning they brown nose management get special treatment because management does not want the ***** breathing down their neck by discriminating against race and gender. Federal Government has a quota to meet on race and color of employees for employment, so they get a payment kickback for meeting requirements by the government. Hard work and going well beyond your job duties get you nowhere in promotion or you miss something or your job management wants to put you on notice and most of the time discipline you by throwing you out of work for a day, two days, week, two weeks, three weeks, thirty days and last termination. Management holds hard and good workers to higher standards because they expect almost perfection and when you make a mistake that is almost unacceptable. Average and lazy workers that come in to work or miss work and make mistakes daily and weekly to collect paycheck with little or no care about job are NOT held to the same standard as good or excellent workers. Management picks and chooses who they want to enforce their company policies like discrimination, zero tolerance and verbal threatening. Family in management and hourly get better treatment. GM temporary employee employment stinks because they have to meet government quota and can not always lay whoever they want and dislike on layoff and call you back at their need for people,so how can you make a living and their training you on jobs stinks because they put you on one to five jobs on a given day. Management hardly ever gives you the 2 to 3 day training to get certified on that job. Management does not have a clue how to use manpower when they have extra help or when they are short on help hardly ever management knows how to utilize employees who knows the jobs that need to be filled or trained them before when extra help is given.Temporary employees can get bumped to three different shift in a three month to one year time.That is why GM has trouble getting temporary employees to work for them. Hard work in today society does not get you a promotion, better pay or special treatment in GM. GM keeps the lazy workers and terminates the good workers. Moral is very low at GM for having a Union and paying dues and Union does not always enforce GM conduct and zero tolerance policy with all employees to management they can picks sides also to who they like or dislike better or worse..

My overall experience was excellent.  The disaster at GM that occurred last year when they did the 15% salaried layoffs, I learned later, just by my regular attendance at local gyms and reputable restaurant establishments at which I meet many new people every day who reside in the Shelby Twp. and surrounding areas, that these were performance layoffs.  When I was at GM, I actually resigned from my new direct hire position after 8 months because my manager, who I had supported like a loyal employee and her new top promising DRE, decided both to overload me AND then after seeing a significant drop in my performance due to carrying 13 rather than 6 programs due to personnel leaving our group, then began to punish me and tell me I was getting a performance review to 'prevent me from being setup for failure.'  Well, obviously that happened before I even agreed to take on the extra work without complaint and deciding to be an upstanding employee because I thought it was the right thing.  She was NOT a professional manager.  She had 20 years in at GM and I was hired into a direct role after being a contractor for only 1 yr and 8 months in our commodity's validation group.  That's unheard of.  My validation manager was a contract engineer for 5 years before being hired in direct (and not as a manager - he started at the bottom of the engineering chain also, and the DRE position at GM is the creme of the crop of the bottom of the engineering structure - validation engineers are looked at as sub-standard to DREs whether it is a fair assessment or not).  The Technical Integration Engineer in our group (manager's right hand man and the engineering side of the balance equation of validation leadership - the manager is the business side with engineering understanding) spent 7 years as a contractor before being hired in direct, so my summary above is nowhere near skewed.  When the performance layoffs occurred, not only was her performance the one in question which she blamed on me who had an excellent service record before my work was more than doubled (or even tripled since many of the programs were someone else's disaster that I had to attempt to clean up ), but my service record in the other group was as a contractor so the official GM record didn't have that logged.  I have one performance review that I actually had to request from the contract company which was given to me via email by the company that recruited me which documents my excellent performance as well as suggestions on what to improve to get hired direct.  My manager was smart enough to use that against me 'officially' although EVERYBODY I had interacted with in the company anywhere near my level knew my achievement record over the course of 2 YEARS AND 4 MONTHS... before I walked out because I had ENOUGH.  That wasn't just shady that was DIABOLICAL.

A typical day at GM was strenuous and sometimes stressful. I learned teamwork. No matter how hard things could get(union, line speed up, mandatory overtime) we had to learn to work and support each other. Even it meant walking out during union negotiations. I’m not saying everyone was the best of friends but when it came to our lively hoods we stuck together and fought together. The management could be someone they trained from the floor (your co-worker) with no management experience and not a people person. But the experience, training and pay they became your supervisor. Favoritisms to their friends. We did have some really good supervisors also. The hard part of the job. It is very physical and you stand on feet for 10-12 hours depending on line time. You know what time your shifts going to start but when your going home depends on the quota for the day. So just know you can’t  walk off a production line. Work hours are between 8-12 hour shifts. I started out at 10.65 and after 10 years it was 25.00 dollars and hour. Then they announced the plant was closing. GM is not stable. To many plant closings. If you decide to work there, save your money. Have another means of income. Invest your money outside of GM. So when your plant closes you have other available income. What I like about GM great benefits and pay and comraderie regardless of what GM plant you came from. Wherever I go you have a GM family that is familiar with the struggle. And says hang in there I’ve been there also.   We heard rumors for years that the plant was going to close but we didn’t believe it. They had put millions into the plant to redesign. The plant was state of the art. But GM can write it off and file bankruptcy. There’s not much time for home life or school. But if you can fit 2 college courses or a skilled trade course in.  I suggest you do it. It’s a sad feeling to lose your job. It’s even sadder when you get another job that starts you out at 9.00 dollars an hour in 2019. GM had its problems but it did pay a honest living before it closed the plant. (Don’t overspend, it easy when you earn a decent living. But if you are lay-off and struggling to pay your mortgage and car payments and feed your family. It’s not worth it. Budget. Many co-workers lost everything. It’s life changing and many don’t recover from the GM plant closing. It affects The whole community. (Note this my opinion from my point of view, others may have had a very different experience)

Pros: GM offers above-average benefits compared with many employers, including solid healthcare, retirement, and time-off options.  Compensation is generally competitive and aligned with market value, especially for engineering and technical roles.  The hybrid work schedule at the Tech Center is a positive, offering better flexibility than fully onsite roles while still allowing collaboration with teams in person.

Cons: GM’s current performance management culture can be a major morale killer. The stacked ranking approach and forced distribution create an environment where employees may feel they are competing against peers instead of being evaluated purely on performance.  There also appears to be a cap on how many employees within a group can receive higher performance ratings. A manager may tell you throughout the year that you are exceeding expectations, but the final review can still come back as “meets expectations” because of calibration, quotas, or internal politics.  Like many large corporations, it can be easy to feel like a small cog in a very large machine. Decision-making is often driven heavily by cost reduction, investor expectations, and headcount efficiency, sometimes at the expense of morale and long-term employee engagement.  The “Workplace of Choice” messaging can feel disconnected from the actual employee experience, especially when performance ranking, headcount reduction, and workload expectations do not align with that message.
Advice to Management
Reevaluate the stacked ranking and forced distribution performance system. It damages morale, creates unnecessary internal competition, and can make employees feel that ratings are driven more by quotas than actual performance.  If salary band midpoints are adjusted significantly due to inflation or market conditions, employee merit increases should better reflect those adjustments. When the market value of a role increases but current employees do not receive comparable adjustments, it can create frustration and make retention more difficult.

The pros of this job are the friendly employees, and the possibility of progressing past a temp status and getting hired on in the future as a full time employee.  Most managers are pretty good and care.  Working on the line is difficult.  It is like working at a racetrack in the pits all day with a new car coming in every 58 seconds.  You do the it every day all day long.  If you don't complete your selected task in time an alarm will go off and the line may stop.  Any time the line stops, it costs the company major money.  As a temp, they will give you a new job station almost daily.  This alleviates boredom, but makes it exceptionally difficult for you to get your task completed by the assigned time as you need to learn how to do the task.  You then need to learn how to do the task in the fastest way possible.  In the old days, I think that this would have been a fantastic 5 star job.  
Under the current hiring system of using temps at a decreased pay rate and no job security, it is not a great job.  The major problem is that as the company is switching to electrical vehicles (their current stated goal in 2021) then GM will be reducing the work force line by approximately 30% as electric vehicles only need 70% of the current workforce to assemble.  That means that as a temp it may be very hard to ever get hired on as a full time employee (non temp status).  Also, you have to work around 2 years as a full time temp to qualify for the desired full time line job.  If a temp gets laid off more than 30 days (per the current contract of 2021) GM can can release all the temp employees.  This means that the temps loose their seniority and have to start all over.  You may re-apply for your job.  This happened at the plant where I worked.  I was also told that in the previous year they had a strike and were off for a period of time due to Covid 19.  

In my current position I am responsible to integrate all electrical systems for vehicles, it means that I develop electrical diagrams to connect all electrical devices (as modules, sensors, switches, BECs, inlines, etc ) that integrate each electrical subsystems such as  chassis, infotainment, powertrain, seats, doors, windows, lamps, HVAC, etc by  meeting GM, services and supplier requirements.

To make that possible, I lead and coordinate different teams and I am in continuous contact with components DRE´s, BFOs and leads to understanding which function will have each component and ensure a correct electrical connection, At the same time, I follow a process to cover specific task for each phase of the program.

I make use of best practices, EMC and pre-reviews, electrical load analysis, run tools and electrical tests to ensure a robust design for harness and correct electrical content per vehicle and market. Some of these tasks request the participation of all electrical architects and for it is necessary to coordinate a meeting and present the design and takes notes about which re-learnings could be applied to the program. I execute a quality design audit to ensure that the best design is delivered considering the electrical and electronic components and safety requirements.

Another task in my actual role is to understand new specifications for delete/modify/add content to current programs or new model years, and how it will impact the wiring harness. (e.i:  impact in materials for implement new engine, new infotainment generation etc., or how impacts new regulations or regulatory content.)

And I support the plant when it reports that electrical component is not working as expected, checking correct electrical connections and helping to explain how it works? or which is the function? and when is required I help with possible solutions. And related to this I support prototype builds at the plant to ensure successful development.

Although my review rating may seem low, it is mainly due to the current state of affairs where the company prioritizes stock market performance over employee retention and happiness. On top of that upper management constantly increases their wages while rarely giving the same amount of increase to employees actually doing the work. There is no pension, 3 years until your 401k is vested with limited investing options, and woke internal politics favoring skin color over performance or diversity of thought (hint: the people that get promoted only do so because they parrot what upper management tells them to).

Overall GM is a great company to work for where you are able to work on projects you rarely would get an opportunity to do so elsewhere. I enjoy my day to day work life and flexibility that lower level managers afford you. I just wish upper management would actually listen to us peasants and take some feedback because there is no reason a CEO should be compensated 15 million a year to sit in meetings all day while the average salary is below 150k unless you become a manager that sits in meetings all day long or a director that does the same. Those of us on the floor don't get resources to complete our work and actually improve the products a customer buys, yet we are compensated the bare minimum and then HR wonders why our workplace has high turnover. 

I've spoke with multiple newer company hires and they all say the same things, agree to the same things and have zero loyalty to GM which is not a great atmosphere to bring and is 100% preventable by introducing better pay that is compensated for inflation (hint: 3% a year is nothing when real inflation is nearly 20% for the last year) and bringing back some sort of pension or alternative retirement options that don't involve wall street taking your money and losing it on purpose to move the market when they please.

They will lay you off without notice and not even have the decency to tell you to your face. One day, you won't be able to login and you will get an email to your personal account hours later informing you and the other 1500 people that your role was eliminated without providing any good reasons other than stockholder value (greed). 

Former Silicon Valley management has taken over the IT department, and the goal is to move all the IT to California. As a result, they are laying off people in Detroit and Austin. And because those people are expensive by comparison, they have to lay off two people in Michigan and Texas in order to afford one new hire in California.  

Not only will they expect you to go into an office three days a week even though your entire team is 1400 miles away in a different time zone, but then they won't even give you an assigned desk. Hotel seating means you have to carry everything you need in and out every day. It also means that you will spend your days listening to others in remote meetings, which can be really distracting because there is always someone within earshot who is a loud talker.  

The pay is good (until they lay you off) but the benefits are definitely not what they used to be. If you have any chronic conditions that require regular medications, be prepared to pay for everything until you hit your deductible. 

Because there have been so many layoffs, the company culture is awful. They practice forced ranking - there is always going to be someone who is labeled as the low performer on every team and when they let that person go, a new low performer has to be identified. That means you have zero motivation to help other team members. Some will even sabotage others in order to avoid being the next target. 

Even with those reductions, the team's expectations will not be reduced. They will still be expected to deliver the same results with fewer and fewer team members.  Let the death march begin! 



Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Software engineer 201 salaries reported	$107,390 per year
Engineer 44 salaries reported	$105,197 per year
Release engineer 28 salaries reported	$113,438 per year
Senior software engineer 114 salaries reported	$172,649 per year
Software test engineer 19 salaries reported	$127,958 per year

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