MetaCarta Reviews

constantly changing strategy -- they were never able to go for it and execute. Engineering group had no experience building enterprise-class product -- built products that were engineer or CTO driven -- not customer focused. Metacarta wanted to be a cool company onto something big but the product and engineering folks kept getting in the way. Technology just wasn't there and eventually the customers found out (along with the sales guys) that engineering couldn't deliver. There were some really great people there at all levels in all areas of the organization. The problems were really the CTO driving the company into the ground by interfering into the decisions trying to be made by the business folks. Senior management didn't have the pedigree from MIT like the engineering team and because of that I don't believe the engineers respected the management -- they just weren't technical. But the engineers were in their first or second job out of college with relatvely little or no professional experience and it showed. Acted like primadonnas for the most part. No doubt that the sales trip to the tropics were seen as a management faux pas -- I didn't go but it sounded like any other club trip -- maybe there should have been one for the engineering team too but they probably would have found fault in that too or it wouldn't be good enough for them.

Several of the more academic types have this disillusion that they're the "old man on the mountain", can be very difficult to communicate with and not suited for a team environment. Collaboration is minimal, and when it does happen having too many bright folks on a project can turn a simple task into an insurmountable burden. Re-invention of the wheel is not unheard of here, but to their credit the folks doing the job are excellent at what they do. Management should put a tighter leash on this type of thing and focus on product releases and moving the company forward, rather than holding it back because Engineering can't get out of their own way. Don't expect performance reviews or raises anywhere close to on-schedule, in fact don't find it surprising to go for several years without an annual review (to be fair however, raises did tend to be retroactive to when the review should have been).