Coasting on the success of trucks from 20 years ago - Anonymous employee PACCAR Employee Review

1.0
5 Sept 2013
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You could show up and sleep off the days until retirement Expectations are low because the Tech Center is not actually responsible for any projects, which results in a good work/life balance The company has always managed to convince investors that they're making money, so you can be assured your paycheck will always clear There are a lot of really knowledgeable friendly engineers and a couple of outstanding managers Great area to live in, and decent team spirit between lower employees because everyone is miserable together and has many of the same complaints

Cons

Tech Center management is never able to say no to crackpot 'innovations' from Daf Tech Center only exists as data collection hub for Daf, the less technical input you have to the functions the better Never any opportunity to do things the right way, only the DAF way. As a result PTC ends up being responsible when dead end Daf projects inevitably fail on North American trucks Customer always comes last after management plays politics in order to ensure their own bonus checks are maintained by misrepresenting project status and dreaming up positive metrics Worker to manager ratio is around 2-to-1 Benchmarking activities exist only to delude senior management as to the superiority of paccar products Daf continuously removes access to failure reporting systems to ensure their metrics are kept positive, and failures go ignored or unreported development is pulled from one shiny thing to the next as chairman spots various things on competitor vehicles that paccar doesn't offer (and there are many) - team is then given 1/10 the time required to properly develop the feature Management team never met a deadline they couldn't shorten to absurdity Bottom line, don't work here if you're looking to innovate or break new technical ground, or are interested in pursuing a career outside of management or accounting

Explore other reviews about PACCAR

5.0
19 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good learning environment for engineering

Cons

Projects can be slow at times

1.0
15 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Not much, if you want a place that's okay with mediocrity, then welcome.

Cons

They blindly follow industry trends not industry standards. We have an initiative to use AI to increase productivity, without a proper plan, without security in mind and lack of general understanding. Consistently understaffed, for example there are teams or parts if teams that have max 4 developer type roles with 36 apps or APIs to support - this has lead to inconsistent code and effort as employees are spread too thin to be able to deliver quality work. Management refuses to take responsibility for issues that arise from being understaffed. Teams are not consistent in what tools and pipelines are used causing even more confusion and delays. Double standards: they don't want to properly promote or give raises to hard workers. Upper management made it clear to direct managers that "meets expectations" was a fine thing to give... To employees doing more than their fair share of work and are doing work outside of their role since they have no one else to do it do to being understaffed.

3
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All