Avoid SIG - Avis employé Principal Engineer Signal Innovations

I have been in the workforce as a software engineer (Principal Software Engineer now) for 24 years. My career has spanned a wide variety of companies (Microsoft for one) on both coasts and I owned my own international business for a number of years. I feel that my experience covers a broad cross section of software and hardware based companies and that I’m objective in this review. SIG initially gave the impression of being innovative and progressive. It is a small company (35ish) and my hope was that they’d recognize out of the box thinking and assign responsibility based on competency. After a very short time there, it was obvious that they don’t operate on either of these principles. I found myself working for a manager that seemed to by trying to fire me in spite of acting like he was satisfied with my performance. The work that I was doing would have been more appropriate for someone just out of school and not a seasoned Principal Engineer. The majority of the other engineers seemed to have a very elitist attitude in spite having an exceedingly mediocre intellect and skillset. They development review practices were based on obtaining a code review consensus among the group. Given the low level of experience and skill there, this seemed bring the quality of code down to the lowest common denominator. Additionally, they seemed to be mired down in this odd passive aggressive backbiting environment. Management was aware of the many failings, but lacked the intestinal fortitude to sort out the problems. The final issue I have with SIG is that the pay was lousy. When I left and came to my current position, I obtained a 25K increase. The only positive thing I can say about them is they have an exceptional administrative and security staff. From all meaningful viewpoints, this was the single worst company in my career. If you are considering taking a position here, you should probably look elsewhere.