assembler

software engineer

account manager

senior software engineer

engineer

Rockwell Automation

Rockwell Automation has a 100 year legacy with world-class products which makes it a premium global brand leader. The innovations that brought them to this point involved risk-taking leaders from the 1990s. As they retired they handed these to junior lieutenants who adopted a "don't break it" phase ~2005-2015. 

Today they are aware that their tech is lagging, but their peers are in similar positions so there is time. This awareness has lead to several initiatives to transform the company.

At their core these initiatives reveal a deep insecurity in the leaders and a lack of trust in their people. Instead of growing and developing talent internally or listening to their experienced engineers, they seek external leaders from competitors and adjacent companies to bring in a steady stream of new ideas. This forces early/mid career rockstars to leave they are not considered for promotions. You are only recognized for the role you are in - not the potential you might have. On the senior end they have lost many 55+ leaders through RIFs/"retirements" and pension tax rates. 

Thus there are numerous organizational fad cycles as the rotation of external leaders try "new" things that had been attempted in the past. (New to them and their new teams).

The real work ultimately falls to mid-career employees able to tiptoe through the cycles with the humility to train their new managers. (We are constantly "training up" to onboard new managers...into roles we were not considered for...at a certain point we share less) 

The upside to this is that your manager will likely change every 2-3 years. If you are self-managed and like freedom you can actually set your own goals and workload with relative ease. There are no swim-lanes here so you are free to wander into other topics or interest areas -- however others will also drift into your lane at times.

The org structure is dated and does not align with peers of this size - $7B/26,000 employees. There are no group presidents. There is a disproportionately small amount of of SVP/VPs for the overall workforce...thus a Director at Rockwell is equivalent to a VP at a peer company. The Directors are the true leaders, with an exception in sales -- which is more liberal with elevated titles to align with customers. A "VP" in sales has considerably less influence than a VP in a business unit.

HR is a hire/fire group or workday jockeys, they lack an actual workforce strategy. You won't talk to a HR rep here after the hire/fire phase. Rockwell also lacks a "farm system" to develop talent, instead there is a focus on free-agency via external attraction. 

You are on your own for advancement. The few people who do get internal promotions rely on their own ego/ambition which causes collateral damage along the way. If you are entering from the outside you have been sought for a specific skill/role - but you will not expand beyond that. Your shelf life will be ~3 years. When they hint at an advancement during your interview do not trust them - even if it is in writing they will not promote internally.

As a contractor I was default less-than any full time employee.  Many of the full time employees I worked alongside didn't treat me that way however a few did (and quite explicitly).  They were supported by management.  It was difficult to get any answer at all, let alone a truthful answer about my contract (this situation was further complication by the agency I was working with).  At the end of my time RA decided to purchase an entire company that they had leased contractors from and convert their employees to full time rather than even considering an offer to me or the other contractor from the same agency that were actively working on projects.  The other contractor in my team was actively asking for information about getting an offer when his contract ended.  It is openly the policy that contractors are present to maintain the already implemented code and keep the lights on while full time employees do new development; not great for the contractors, for code health / tech debt, or for the few full time employees tasked with overseeing contractors and it has the side effect that the full time employees don't have the learning experience of seeing what the maintenance and upkeep results of their work are.

The company uses a mix of different management methodologies and, anywhere I saw, get's the lowest common denominator of any of them.  Six Sigma, SAFe and Scrum are all thrown in the mix together, despite conflicting with each other.

Individual engineering teams are bespoke, separated into silos on purpose.  On the upside this means that any team can make changes to the product they are working on in the way they see most fit, nobody will tell them not to... until a change makes someone take notice. Trying to work together across teams is not something well practiced. The most common team to team interactions are attempts at moving work off one team that is overloaded onto another team that is also overloaded.  When team's must share code (even just an interface) and there are no other options there is no cooperation, one team gets to be dominant, doing what serves them best, and the other team has to do whatever it takes to make what the dominant team wanted to do work for them.

Architecture is a mess, architecture oversight is nearly non-existent.  Designs are not considered ahead of time and architecture is accidental (as opposed to emergent based on a set of guiding principals and concepts). Common tools and practices don't exist; something as basic as code review processes caused a huge issue on one of the two teams I was on.  What few shared libraries there are I saw to be naive in design.

Pros
Fair compensation and benefits, good opportunities to network outside of a work setting through work sponsored groups; although you will always be extremely busy and likely will not be able to attend these events due to aggressive and false deadlines. 

Cons
Toxic culture within finance department, mainly due to office politics. Managers are not promoted by their efforts nor professional credentials, but more often by who they know. Aforementioned managers make no attempt to teach nor coach employees, yet expect perfection in unfamiliar areas. If you are not part of "the in crowd" you will never advance your career at the company.
Working 60+ hours weekly is the expectation for financial analysts, and the culture of financial entities at the company rarely hands out compliments for good work. Individuals in which attempt to manage their work/life balance are not given any opportunities for career growth. Higher than normal turnover within finance compared to other companies in the industry has been recognized by senior leadership, but they claim not to know what is causing it, and therefore have no ideas regarding how to solve it.
Company boasts about its efforts to promote a 'culture of inclusion' as well as being 'one of the world's most ethical companies for x strait years' I have yet to see these within finance, as the atmosphere is extremely sneaky and back stabbing, and people will always cut you down in front of superiors in an attempt to make themselves "look good". 

Overall 
If it's in finance, especially with the Customer Support and Maintenance business, I wouldn't recommend pursuing employment here. The department reorganized recently, which allowed extremely under qualified people to be prompted into managerial roles through their political affiliations. Many more qualified individuals were interested in being promoted to managers, but they were overlooked, and many have already left the company as a result. Since I joined the team, there have been numerous Senior Financial Analyst positions posted within the department, and the reputation of Customer Support and Maintenance Finance is so tarnished that not a single candidate within Rockwell Automation applied for these generally lucrative positions. Basically, unless you desperately need employment, or are okay with drinking an exorbitant amount of the company/department's "kool-aid", I would steer clear.

Jobs at Rockwell are "OK" but most of management kills that right off the bat. They are constantly changing rules and just looking for ways to get you in trouble. I don't know why they are always trying to fight against you. But they sure as hell won't work with you. Management will put on the "act" that they love it there, meanwhile they are looking for a different job. 

If you have a family or just simply want to have a life outside of work good luck if you get a job at Rockwell. They will work you 70hrs a week if they can. But most of the time only 57 and thats so they only have to give you one 15 minute break when you come in and work on Saturday or Sunday. Which you inevitably will do because they don't know how to schedule work load. So then in a month after working 6 days a week you will be asked to take a voluntary lay off. 

Nobody ever knows what is going on with the product there. The engineers mess up stuff EVERY SINGLE DAY! Their computer system is a joke and they change prints all the time so nothing ever works right. 

Little room for advancement. They almost always hire from outside anytime there is any management position open. Those new hires come in for 6 months and then leave. The turn over in supervisors at RC was absurd with 5 supervisors leaving in the last 12 months alone! 

They Nit pick everything regardless of how good you do your job. They will then give you a bad review (regardless of how great you did) just so they don't have to pay you a yearly bonus, since that is now how they figure bonuses.  They have a blatant disregard for safety on some big issues but they will be severe sticklers on others. 

The job posting system is a joke and doesn't work. So many employees got wrote up for the smallest things so you couldn't move from the shift you were on and when it came time to post for jobs 3/4 of them couldn't post to where they WANTED to work so they got placed by the supervisor. 

If you have an issue with management you are supposed to take it to HR. Who in turn will then tell the supervisor everything and "let them take care of it".

Overall my memories of Rockwell are positive. Most of the people I worked with across all functional areas were great, i.e., the engineers, the purchasing agents, supplier managers, commodity product managers, strategic sourcing managers, etc. In addition, many of the people who had been with the company for a long time were more than willing to mentor the "newbies!" I always found my coworkers to be helpful and friendly and the suppliers were almost always awesome...given the stresses they were under. Some of the hardest parts of the job were dealing with product quality issues when a line got shut down and our team would have to resolve that issue and get replacements parts...fast! I was able to learn a lot about purchasing in a large manufacturing environment and to top it off, I was able to earn my Green Belt in Lean manufacturing with the help of two great Black-Belts.

While one great aspect of working at Rockwell was being able to work with plants in different countries and learn different cultures, oftentimes, many days weren't that challenging and were spent mainly on spreadsheets moving product delivery dates in and out or resolving lost product or invoicing issues. I also didn't think there was a very good work/life balance. The people who seemed to climb the highest were the ones who seemed to spend many, many hours in the office and spend more time socializing with the managers outside of the office. I also found the environment quite political but, perhaps that's the culture in a very large company. 

I have fond memories of several great managers and co-workers as well as memories of a couple not-so-great managers who had no business managing people...EVER! But, in the end, I will always look back on my years with Rockwell fondly.

 Lack of Organization
There is no consistent organization in the company.  Internal processes are not clear and are often not allowed to be updated without a big committee and lots of meetings that ultimately is just decided by the highest manager.   Tasks and projects are often assigned without clear instructions or deadlines, and it’s obvious that nobody is actually keeping track of things. The disorganization spills over into every department, creating confusion and inefficiency.

Poor Leadership
The management team is completely out of touch with the needs of the employees and the business.  They don’t seem to have a clear vision for the company's direction, and decision-making is inconsistent at best.  When they do make decisions, it’s often reactive, not proactive, and they rarely involve the input of employees who actually understand the day-to-day operations.   As a result, management, organization, and direction/vision is changing often.   Example:  I was hired as an engineer and in a few months was promoted to manager in a reorg effort for a new vision.  Less than three years later, the CEO and upper management changed their mind and laid me off as a manager in light of a new, leaner vision.

No Support for Growth
Professional development? Forget it.  Even though I quickly was promoted to management, it was out of immediate need by the company ... not any training or growth of me.  There’s no real effort to help employees advance their skills or grow in their roles.  It's clear that the focus is on short-term survival, not long-term success or employee satisfaction. There's a lack of opportunities for career advancement.

Conclusion
It's a nice place to work, offices and cafeteria and gym, with good pay --- but be ready for things to change every three years or so -- including your job!

Rockwell Automation/Allen Bradley corporation used to be the best place to work in the area. Many people were known as "Lifers", which meant once you got a job there you stayed for life. That mentality went out the window when Rockwell bought Allen Bradley Co. Now the only things they are interested in are numbers. They don't care about the people that work there, which in turn makes the people who work there not care about the company. It has been sad to see how things have gone downhill over the years. Management in general is only interested in keeping their jobs, and making their numbers look good. They are usually only there for a short time to add experience to their resumes, and then they move on. There used to be a sort of pride in what was made there, and quality was job #1. Now it is all about how cheap parts be bought, and keeping as little inventory as possible in the building. Much if not almost all of the production that was at this facility has been move to Mexico. Again it is all about profit margin. Why pay Americans $16 an hour, when you can pay Mexicans $9 a day! There is no pride in this company anymore, and I wish that was the worst of it. The worst part of all is the blatant lying. I think it is a job requirement to get any kind of office job for this corporation. They lie right to your face, and smile about it. So if you don't mind working for a company that doesn't care about you, pays decently well, lies to your face, puts constant stress on you no matter what, and you think head games are fun. Then this is the place for you. If not look elsewhere.

I truly liked working at Rockwell Automation, as with many places the people are the true value of the organization.  They excelled at recruiting some of the best and brightest, at providing training opportunities, and providing one of the best work-life balance environments I've encountered in the Milwaukee market.  There is much to value with RA!

Sadly, their "leadership" lacks the foresight and wisdom to capitalize on the truly amazing human assets they have at their disposal.  The IT senior "leadership" team cannot figure out how to provide the direction and charismatic leadership required to work with the business units, which would give the Information Technology teams the direction needed to deliver the truly outstanding results being expected from the rest of the company.  The IT department is a hard working group, all ready to lean in and work hard to deliver results.  I made a parenthetical reference to leadership because the senior level execs have no idea how to truly lead; they follow the demands from other business units, they micromanage teams in regards to hours and budgets, and they are not engaged with the staff to listen and learn and simply cannot provide meaningful feedback to their subordinates.  There is minimal vision and minimal understanding of how to create worthwhile goals that last more than a year at a time.  

I would definitely welcome an opportunity to work at Rockwell Automation again, but I absolutely would not want to work in the IT department.

If you enjoy large company culture, such as what is parodied in movies, then Rockwell is for you.  Hey look, we hired a black guy!Meetings to plan for meetings.  Meetings to review meetings, meetings just to have meetings.  Quarterly Regional management dog and pony show, and death by PowerPoint.    Expect 50 or more emails per day including newsletters for each of the multiple business units as well and HR, etc.  All of these treasures and more can be found at Rockwell Automation.

There is a ton of task overlap and sales management is laughable on their best day. No true salesperson would consider this role due to the absurdity.  Deadlines for product management mean less than nothing, but deadlines for employee surveys are expected in more than a month before due date.  

Most of the sales force is comprised of engineers.  Name an engineer you know who also have an engaging personality and doesn't have to feel like the smartest person in the room at all times.  I'll wait.  Oh by the way, that doesn't always go over well with customers...who are also ENGINEERS!


The hardest working person at the company is the VP of Sales Prevention.  The Logix5K product is the company's bread and butter, and all other sales success hinges upon it (i.e.- "premier integration).  Other than that, RA does little more than trade on a brand name created in the PLC boom of the 80s.

Everything about this company sucks. The management sucks, the paying sucks, and lazy workers! First shift are the worse workers, but yet everything gets blamed on second and third shift if they don't finish an order or messed up on a drive. They hire lazy workers and let go of the people who actually wants to work. A lot of cry babies and snitchers in this company. A lot of testers and other employees left this place to work at GE because people who works at Rockwell are getting under paid and thats FACTS. 20 cents yearly raise? What kind of bull is that? Some people barely get a 20 cent raise. One material handler on second shift picking parts for 3 departments?! When asked the supervisor and product manager to hire another material handler to help out on second shift, they're answer was, "we can't, we're trying to save money." How are you a multi-billionaire company who is under paying your workers and "supposedly" can't afford to hire another material handler? Saving money my a**, this company is money greedy. Busting your butt off 10 hours every day and all they do is buy pizzas or donuts for the employees to eat after the busy season is over with. WE DON'T WANT YOUR FOOD, GIVE US A BONUS CHECK! One frame 1-7 cost about $5000-$10,000 easily! We push out thousands of drives out every week. The whole Rockwell system is just messed up period.

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