Misleading hiring practices, poor management alignment, and a difficult work environment - Avis employé Computer Systems Engineer Aero Simulation

I joined this company hopeful and excited, but my experience was deeply disappointing and not at all aligned with what was presented during the interview process. From the very beginning, I felt misled. I was told one thing about compensation and role expectations, but once hired, I was brought in below my experience level to justify a lower salary. Despite being hired as a software engineer, I was never once assigned actual programming work. Instead, my responsibilities consisted almost entirely of creating Powerpoint slides and dry SDD documentation, with no meaningful technical contribution or growth. The organization itself is extremely disorganized. There is no clear system for tracking work or issues (no Jira or equivalent), requirements are vague, and there is little to no documentation. Tasks are often assigned verbally and change frequently, making it very difficult to know what success even looks like. Leadership is poorly aligned and often openly conflicting. Different managers regularly contradict one another, and employees are told to ignore what someone else said. There appears to be ongoing power struggles among those running projects, which creates constant confusion and frustration for individual contributors. The work environment is also unwelcoming. There are employees, including at least one manager, who make inappropriate comments and “jokes” that create an uncomfortable atmosphere. This behavior is tolerated rather than addressed. The technology stack is extremely outdated, with no real desire or plan to modernize. For engineers looking to grow or keep their skills current, this is a serious drawback. Onboarding is essentially nonexistent. I was given no structured introduction, no clear expectations, and no real support to get up to speed. Travel expectations are also not communicated honestly. While travel is mentioned during interviews, the reality is frequent, last minute travel, sometimes for multiple weeks at a time. When traveling, mandatory overtime is required, sometimes 60+ hour work weeks, including weekends. This is not made clear up front. Despite claims of being flexible and accommodating to personal life, the reality is the opposite. There is a strong anti work from home culture driven by a lack of trust in employees. This distrust also shows up in extremely militant time tracking practices. Even as a salaried employee, time charging is aggressively enforced, including badging into nearly every space, even break areas. I have worked in government contractor environments before and have never seen it taken to this level. The company’s outlook is also concerning. Multiple contracts have been lost after significant investment, and while leadership insists there is plenty of work, I personally witnessed layoffs due to lack of available projects. Finally, the company frequently promotes itself as “employee owned” as a major benefit, but this applies meaningfully only to a small subset of long tenured employees. You must be there for 2 years before receiving any shares, and 5 years for it to vest. Despite this, the label is often used as justification for not improving compensation, benefits, or working conditions. Overall, this was one of the most frustrating professional experiences I’ve had. I would strongly caution engineers or anyone seeking a healthy, transparent, and respectful workplace to ask very detailed questions before accepting an offer here.