Pros
(Lumen was previously Centurylink) You come into the company on roughly a standard wage (not dreadful, not exactly market leading) but the people you work with on the front line are amazing and make your initial experience worth while. Benefits were standard in the industry, can't complain. Interview process was shorter than other US companies do but still engaging, on-point and feedback is given.
Cons
Unfortunately the cons do outweigh the pros here - a lot - and sadly they got worse with the merger with Level3. These were two companies with totally different DNA. My advice is if you need a 1-2 year career move in view of a leap to bigger and better things then you can't really go wrong. There is enough here to keep you reasonably happy and comfortable for that period. Like the above note, the people you work with day in and day out are amazing and are the glue that holds the place together even though Snr Management refuse to see this. Do not expect any merit or bonuses there is always an excuse why this doesn't happen very often - on the rare occasion when it does it is 1% or 2% (tops) if you are really lucky and wangle an 'outstanding' on your review which is like winning the lottery twice over. Direct-line management (in region) was never really an issue on a personal level - mostly sound people who do care but they are powerless they just have nice titles. All roads lead to the US Management stack and it rapidly gets progressively bad to abysmal. There are VP's and SVP's in this company that can't even tie their own shoe laces it is that bad. Decision making comes from C-level straight down - there is no proactive bottom up discussion on what the right calls are to make you just get dumped with the new thoughtless strategy that is almost always the wrong call. Regional Management hierarchy may as well not have even existed because they held no powers to enforce necessary changes (even just regional ones or simple moral ground issues) and are constantly overridden by the US Management chain that always seems to know better and have the answer to everything. In a word - "no". This stalled regional growth year on year. I was there (EMEA) for 7 years and I watched what was a pretty good company at the time slowly but surely dissolve to what is now a relative shadow of its former self. So many good folks have been made redundant and it seems the writing is on the wall for the UK side of the house at least.
