[hackles_raised]

It was a horrible place to work.

From a technical perspective they were completely incompetent, refusing to consider that a plan put in place years before might now be invalid.

Investing in hardware and the associated data center, years before a system is due to be deployed 'because my bonus depends on it'.

Outsourcing gone mad.

Obvious quid pro quo arrangements between management and vendors.

There were good people there but they were ignored or marginalized by the Frankfurt crowd.

Most of the technical staff would not get though an intern technical interview at Apple / Google / ...

I tried to build an internal team in Cary to try and prove that outsourcing is not the answer, but it was pointless, the staff available were totally and obliviously incompetent, one of them refused to participate unless we used Erlang, I know Erlang, I really like it, so I quizzed him on why he wanted to use Erlang, you know the outcome, he had no knowledge of OTP, and only a cursory familiarity with the language, and yet I was asked to let this guy lead my development team.

Try hiring technical talent into that environment. They did pay well though.

I bailed and headed back to the valley.