software engineer

senior software engineer

manager

analyst

test engineer

OCLC

Working at OCLC Inc. has been an interesting experience, and I'd like to share my thoughts in this three out of five star review as an employee.

Pros:

    Diverse Workforce: OCLC Inc. has a diverse and inclusive workforce, which creates a welcoming and collaborative atmosphere. It's great to work alongside people from various backgrounds and perspectives.

    Work-Life Balance: The company values work-life balance, and I appreciate the flexibility in terms of working hours and remote work options. This has allowed me to maintain a reasonable balance between my professional and personal life.

Cons:

    Communication Challenges: Communication within the company can be inconsistent. Important information sometimes takes a while to reach all employees, which can lead to confusion and inefficiencies.

    Limited Growth Opportunities: While OCLC Inc. offers stability, growth opportunities within the company seem limited. Advancement can be slow, and it's essential to manage career expectations accordingly.

In summary, OCLC Inc. has its strengths, such as a diverse workforce and a commitment to work-life balance. However, there are areas where improvement is needed, particularly in communication and career advancement opportunities. Overall, it's a decent place to work, but it may not be the ideal fit for everyone depending on their career aspirations and priorities.

OCLC was a great place for me to establish myself as an HTML-savvy librarian who wanted to get the firm's offerings out to librarians globally.  Within two months of joining, I took on the website editing, graphics selection and placement and story editing for the official site of the Dewey Decimal Classification system.  I had much pride in showing my web page work to my friends who could find the site by just entering "dewey decimal system" in a Yahoo! search.  This was my most enjoyable role.
The challenging part was once I was moved into a tech troubleshooting role for cataloging products.  Out team undertook more and more products to cover, and I went from being subject matter expert on 2 products and balancing 4 others to attempting to support approximately 14 products.  Then I felt stretched thin, and I couldn't resolve an e-mail or inbound call in one step.  Once the firm began downsizing 3 to 5 percent of the staff in one fell swoop, workers knew their time was limited.
It's been just over 10 years since I worked at OCLC.

OCLC is stuck between where they used to be - great place to make a career, projects would take as long as it took to get them done which could be years after the original planned end date - and where they want to be, which is a fast-moving agile development shop.  There is good reason to try to change; some of their older internal processes and tools are barely sticking together with duct tape.  But the new IT management is trying to turn on a dime and it's not going well at all.  Smart executives who've worked on similar transitions elsewhere left for greener pastures where they could make more of an impact.  Remaining executives let go of teams maintaining their existing products before the replacements were ready.  External consultants were favored over internal employees, to an unhealthy degree.  The drive to turn on a dime, and unrealistic project timelines, led to high levels of stress.

It's a shame as the end products serve a good purpose, but I can't recommend working there.

OCLC provides legacy services to libraries worldwide while striving to bring forth new products to help libraries achieve their goals. OCLC's mission is summed up by "Because what is known must be shared". The complexity of managing a huge repository of metadata of library held items, applying that data to partnerships with others in the industry and navigating the effect of technology change on library missions keeps the organization busy. Executive turnover is high because the mission is so complex and demanding, but turnover in the lower ranks is much lower. It is the lower ranks where the institutional knowledge resides and endures. I'd recommend it - it will challenge, reward and frustrate you in turn, and it will be exciting to see where libraries go in the future.

Some of the management members are not truly qualified for their positions and they depend on their team to pick up the slack. Failure to do so results in team meetings where the team is blamed for failing to make the management look good. Dishonesty is practiced to keep some members of management happy. There is no clear structure for complaining about direct supervisors.  "This is how we have always done this" wins out over other important considerations. 
Some departments do seem to work well but those that do not seem to be enabled, allowing them to continue in their disfunction at great risk to the organization as a whole. The best thing OCLC has going for it is that it is a nonprofit and benefits libraries, so perhaps any issues will be treated kindly by regulators if and when they are discovered. It is sad because the mission of the company is very important to society as a whole.

The company has a great mission. Helping the provide access to worlds information is incredibly noble.  The challenge is they have no leadership that can take the forward. The primary products are 15-20 years old and there are no plans to update to modern technology. They are claiming they are AI-first and AI-Forward, but in reality, it’s marketing. The library community wants them to say they are doing AI, so they make up initiatives that are expensive and fruitless. They did the same thing with the cloud. They didn’t know what they were doing, but rushed into the cloud. Every executive is overpaid compared to the value they bring. Product team - no movement. Finance - shell games. Technology - no progress. Executive leadership - salary has double during his tenure, yet the company revenue has stayed the same. 

Very laid back environment, diverse people which is great! When I joined this company I thought I would retire here, unfortunately I learned lot after taking fulltime job here, there are so many political agenda both people management and individual contributors (mostly I believe it is cause to secure their job), most individual have no Team Goal at all. Good for boot campers and fresh graduate, If you are mid to high level engineer you are not going to learn anything from your seniors and no one have ears to listen. Average pay good benefits

If you are the type of person who likes to go to work, do your job, talk to no one, and then come home, then this is absolutely the job for you. However, if you are the type of person that likes to make friends at work and enjoys communicating with co-workers, then this is not the place for you! The cataloging department at OCLC offers decent pay and great experience for your resume, but I personally felt like a robot when I went to work, because no one talked to each other. You were expected to work completely independently, and never as a team. It was very strange. No one was every unfriendly or rude, but it was not a friendly, healthy environment for someone who enjoys making friends on the job. Not recommended for anyone who enjoys working as a team!

I learned a lot working here. I was new to software development. The company serves academic libraries and so librarians are sometimes drawn to working here. You might make more than you would in a library. However, in my experience, self-serving behavior is most often what is rewarded. I worked here for over 10 years and left around 2 years ago. Maybe I was naïve when I started and maybe it happens to everyone as they get older and work in a professional job. I am female. Maybe it is me. I don't see people the same way after working here. I wouldn't trade it and I'm glad I worked here but I stayed too long and the position I was in was toxic. 

After earning my Masters in Library Science I was grateful to have had the opportunity to work at an organization that would enrich and expand my understanding on the business side of the library world. OCLC as a non-profit membership organization does a remarkable job of balancing their mission with the necessary business of information organization, access and delivery. Working at OCLC was the best possible way to work with all types and sizes of libraries to understand that one size does not fit all.  Understanding each library-clients unique needs and presenting the best solution for their needs was truly a great opportunity.

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