My least favorite internship, please read if you are really considering applying/interviewing - Graduate Intern Edaptive Computing Employee Review

Unethical behavior: employees are constantly encouraged to leave positive reviews, especially at once a month birthday/company update meetings with emphasis on appropriately spacing them out so that they do not look suspicious/untrustworthy. This was even brought up during private job offer and salary discussions with the CEO, which was uncomfortable and definitely made it seem like leaving reviews, particularly in places where your identity can be reverse engineered, can earn you kudos with her. I was especially encouraged to emphasize my gender(female) in my review - which makes sense, considering my last estimate of ECI's gender distribution as >95% male. My general impression is that until recently, the company was 100% male. Intentional mismanagement and confusion: Every discussion with the CEO is intentionally disorienting - questions will be redirected rather than answered. As I approached the completion of my masters degree, I was brought into a meeting with her to discuss a job offer. I was not made an official offer at that time, and was told they would get back to me about details/salary/etc... Two weeks later, without ever making me an official offer, she redirected the entire discussion through my supervisor by telling them I had already accepted despite never being made a concrete offer. The entire ordeal was very forced and awkward. Although her language was very positive during that meeting and subsequent meetings about transitioning to full-time work, I was never given an official offer letter or told if the salary I asked for would be granted despite waiting ~6 weeks. Also, she was clearly shocked that I asked for $60k - $70k, and immediately launched into a spiel about the benefits ECI offers and how "benefits account for 40% of a total salary". Sorry to say but no, they don't - salary and benefits are and should be two independent factors when considering job offers. Ridiculous process management: every team is made to follow Agile methodologies, even if they do not in any way develop software. This is done so that ECI can achieve CMMI level 5, which I understand as a business goal. What I do not understand is how they expect their employees to have any time to actually do work when their internal processes demand constant, repetitive documentation (the exact opposite of truly agile practices, by the way). Intrusive micromanagement: every single request must be made in advance, and approved by all (supervisor, project manager, CEO at the minimum) before being granted. This includes any and all flex-time, like leaving an hour early for an appointment and making it up later. So, while ECI claims to be flexible their process is anything but - supervisors alone should be trusted to handle such approvals rather than involving a whole chain of people each and every time (which I assume only exists to discourage people from placing requests). Also, I observed a lot of undocumented, "unapproved", and therefore unpaid overtime for supervisors and upper management. It seems that at this point most of these employees just come in late since they know they'll be there late, and overtime is subject to the extensive approval process outlined previously. Pay is low for all tiers of employees, and initial hiring position NEVER follows internal documentation. On their internal file system is it easy to find a spreadsheet of their positions and the corresponding tasks and minimum education required. From this, it was obvious that not only was I going to be offered a lower title (and I am assuming lower pay) than I should have been, most of my colleagues were in the exact same position. As other reviewers have remarked, working conditions were cramped. Despite just expanding into a new building, most employees work in a tightly packed bullpen, with shallow separators between each desk. This environment is created intentionally so that supervisors and upper management can always watch screens and make comments - my supervisor was pleasant to work for in every way, but others I observed were much pettier. It is also incredibly distracting and loud, because there are always people talking and walking through - music is a necessity to focus. For those considering interviewing: in my experience, potential employees are intentionally kept away from the working environment and are only walked through the entrance/conference rooms; in retrospect, this is the only interview I have ever had where I was not given a tour of the facilities in any way. So, please ask for a tour and make your own judgement based on their response.