AT&T reviews

I worked at Bell Labs for half a decade, what once was one of the innovation centers in the US. No more. The current leadership of AT&T (which is really SBC) gives lip service to innovation while laying off the scientists literally responsible for the Internet today. I did not witness anyone working on interesting software projects or research problems at AT&T today. You will only be happy if you enjoy helping accountants perform more cost cutting and legal saber rattling. This assessment may seem hyperbolic, and there are corners of the company that are still fighting to do good work, but I speak from experience. I've witnessed senior scientists humiliated, the careers of young software engineers and researchers wasted on trivial work, and front line customer servive reps told to screw customers to save money. The culture of the company is in decline and the best people --- some of whom gave their entire careers for the old AT&T --- have already left with great sadness.

If you are not mobile, you won't advance, regardless of how good your skills are. Many of the people who came over when SBC bought AT&T still have the legacy AT&T mindset of "budget cutting is the only way to be profitable." Assignments in the older (wireline) side of the business are dead end jobs, but getting out of those jobs into other assignments is tough. Outside technical and customer-facing jobs are high pressure, poorly paid, and typically dead-end.