Pros
First, I'd like to say that Lenovo is a company with tens of thousands of employees so your mileage will certainly vary depending on what position you're in and what team, so this review may very well not be applicable to you. -Occasionally I was able to work on interesting things / emerging technology -The workload was generally very minimal so it was easy to coast while still having everyone appear to be quite happy with output given the typically glacial pace of work due to the many levels of bureaucracy -Acceptable but not incredible pay -Good benefits, nice yearly bonus, great health insurance, etc. -Sometimes get paid travel which could be a pro or con, I suppose -Pre-COVID they would do team building things but they basically completely abandoned this.
Cons
-Unbelievable levels of bureaucracy meaning even tiny decisions might take a week for you to get a response to work on something trivial. -Pretend to do AGILE but don't do anything even approximating it. -Regularly outsource HR/team management to teams in India and Brazil with varying degrees of competency, also resulting in huge issues with timezones. Late or early meetings or not being able to contact important people for a full day. -Absurd, highly micromanaged (reading key swipes) return to office policy that was surely to try to get people to quit. Three days in office two remote, pre-COVID it was flexible and not micro-managed as long as you got your work done. -Has many small teams that are doomed to fail as they pretend like they're supposed to compete with other companies that spend hundreds of millions on similar teams. -Horrible communication. Even when dealing with severance could not at any point get a final number for what my severance was going to be despite dozens of emails. Severance came late, past the final date for it on the document I signed, and I am still even now dealing with unemployment repercussions of not putting forth accurate severance number since they outright refused to tell me what it would be. -Absurd amount of managers. At times it was like Office Space where you have 5+ managers coming to tell you the same things. Never really clear what any individual one of these people actually does for their job. -They never ask for feedback or seek to improve. In my 6 and a half years there I think I had maybe 5 "one-on-ones" with most being in 2018 and like two being in 2020 while working remote. Many managers just tow the line and do whatever is asked of them without any pushback when what is asked is foolish. -Pay increases are small, and one year they didn't even give us one. -Constant, regular layoffs. Before I was laid off, every single other person who did a similar role to me had already been laid off except one person so I knew the writing was on the wall, but it creates a depressing environment. -The work almost always felt empty and pointless. Constant re-inventing of the wheel after time and time again the product managers and business teams decide to completely change everything or obtain new requirements involving completely rebuilding software. -Although the workload is usually extremely light and easy, occasionally you'll have a month or two out of nowhere of break-neck pace where suddenly some new requirements suddenly give you a ton of things to work on. -Last few months of work I literally had nothing to do so I just started independently studying things, which I guess is a pro and a con. To summarize, this was my least favorite job I've ever had. Despite being a generally extremely happy and content person, multiple times I felt depressed at the prospect of going to work here. The only really good things I can say are that I got a lot of money from working here and the work was generally extremely easy. It was a good way to waste many years of my professional life while getting to accomplish many things in my personal life, at least.