Avoid if you can, it's branded as a battery start-up but stuck in old Volkswagen Group structures - Anonymous employee PowerCo Employee Review

1.0
31 May 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Pay is satisfying and includes overtime.

Cons

PowerCo SE is being marketed as Volkswagen Group's latest battery startup. In reality, it's stuck in legacy Volkswagen structures that prevent it from being flexible. Don't be fooled by the flat reporting lines they advertise below job listings. There's nothing flat. You'll have to work your way through countless approvals before getting one thing done. Managers micromanage every single project and have little experience managing teams. They barely listen and are mostly there to show others they are managers earning a lot. You'll constantly be reminded about who reports to whom because that's what most managers are concerned about. The reporting levels and structures give a sense of responsibility and feed into their unquenchable ego. If you're someone who is not concerned about that but okay with just doing a bit of your work and taking your pay, it's probably the place for you. There are no set structures yet on career development yet as they are also figuring it out.

avatar
PowerCo Response
10mo
Thanks for your honest feedback. As a young company within a large group, we’re aware that some legacy structures still influence our ways of working. We're actively working on building our own identity, culture, and career paths – and that takes time. We’re learning and growing every day. - Your PowerCo HR Team

Explore other reviews about PowerCo

1.0
28 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

This was challenge, soooo many broken systems here from top to bottom. You need to pretend you don’t have any experience, otherwise your manager will be afraid of outshining them and more expectations being set. Because everyone plays the same game, it’s easy to just skip the work without any accountability. I guess a pro is they hire lots of immigrants like me, which is nice. But then they don’t want to listen to us and just want us to sit there in meetings and agree to stuff that are wrong.

Cons

No career options, even if you wanted to become a team lead, you would need to 1) wait several years for a free spot in the team lead mentoring program to open 2) go through team lead mentorship 3) wait for a new team lead position to open in the company. This means you can wait many years to maybe get promotion. And for pay raise, there is a political thing called “10% rule” so which means at most 10% of people will n company could get a pay grade increase, even if it is very deserving. Many teams have people with same job title and responsibilities, and one of them is higher pay grade. Often the higher paid person is just used chat gpt / MS copilot to do all their works. Really silly to see this, and with all confidence doing it. It really is politics here, need to play the game I guess.

2
2.0
14 Jul 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good work-life balance Pleasant office atmosphere

Cons

The company is far from Volkswagen standards: -Salary bands are not competitive and are well below the market average in Spain for specialist, expert, and senior expert positions—especially in operations, engineering, and battery manufacturing. -Career paths are nonexistent, with very limited opportunities for progression. Promotions tend to depend more on internal connections than on actual performance or merit. -Benefits are poor, and support for expat employees who are not in management roles is extremely limited. -Additionally, there is a lot of manual work required across all departments, as the company consistently refrains from investing in modern technology and tools that could streamline processes.

1
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All