Not what it used to be - Senior Product Development Engineer IDNEO Employee Review

IDNEO was a spin off of a Tier 1 automotive group and another company, companies that saw the profits of the consulting business and thought about getting their share. The company has restructured many times but it was always part of the Tier 1 group. The Tier 1 group was bought at some point by a Japanese corporation and IDNEO was not part of the deal, so IDNEO became independent and relocated to Mollet Del Valles, this is where I feel it started going the wrong way. The help that the company offered to their the employees for this relocation was insignificant compared to the commute costs as they were not required to offer any by law, they also offered to subsidise the cost of 1 euro worth car sharing app, which is laughable to say the least. So most of the employees left, this created technical debt on the projects and know lost, whole teams left in a month or two. Projects are filled with interns and graduates, and in some cases with people from different disciplines that can't contribute (just to fill a spot ang get paid by the customer...) , experienced people is not replaced with people with similar skills, projects rely on miracle workers for the most part, who end up being overworked and leaving. Every project I have been part of is mostly a mess, with people more concerned about leaving the company that involved in the project. It is exhausting to work like this and little one can do when the issue is at the core of the company. They sell that you can choose your own path in this company and that is correct, because progression is mostly lateral, you can choose the project you want to be part of for the same salary. The way to to up in this company is by recommendation or by counter offer, forget about delivering results or being professional, just fill your time sheet, your direct superior, in most cases, is taking all the credit for your work, specially if you are a resident engineer at the customer site where it is easier for him to do this, and business directors do not care. Feedback is not honest and there is no communication and missinformation at the middle management layer. It is sad to say this in this time and age, but to be honest to the truth catalonian employees favour each other and employees from other regions of Spain are looked upon with contempt, and I say this as a catalonian myself. This has been mentioned in other reviews. It is simply astonishing to see people with no clue of processes and technologies are promoted to technical management roles and people with the social skills of a potato ending up as team leaders. I feel this is because promotions are not based on measurable merits, results and fitness for the role. Although they claim on their website that their location is easily accessible, in my experience there is not enough parking space and no convenient trains or buses. It is not possible to get there just by bike or electric scooter alone, it is in the middle of nowhere. The HR department simply does not have a background in engineering companies and the "dream maker" philosophy that they and the board want to project on employees does more harm than good, there is just a few gullible employees that fall for that, most people know perfectly fine the difference between values of the company and what they sell to employees. HR here is the kind of people that string you along year after year with promises full of intellectual dishonesty. Employees are not happy overall, I think last year some threatened to go on strike over no salary increases, not even inflation! It was a good place to be but these days it is a stepping stone, a sweat shop that is best to avoid.