Despite being a very valuable superstar employee, I received very mediocre salary increases and no bonuses for my role because it's non-billable. There wasn't really a way for me to advance out of the role I was in, either. The salary increases suck because the company isn't doing very well (I'm told they were better a few years ago). Utilization for billable employees was low across the board in my department - which I blame on management. Either downsize the department or otherwise do something to bring utilization up across the board, but don't expect everyone to tolerate mediocre pay increases, especially your superstar employees who have no control over utilization percentages.
Ellucian is the product of a recent merger between Datatel and Sungard Higher Education, and in many ways there is an internal rivalry between the two which is counter-productive. Management is trying to change this but petty feuding between team members from different sides of the merger still abounds.
Working from home and only talking to your manager once per month might sound nice, but I got sick of the lack of social interaction. In my previous company there was a good mix of remote work, client site engagements, and working out of the office, and there was a great camaraderie that I really miss. Because I was remote, and because everyone else was remote, it was really not possible to build many lasting relationships with coworkers. Even when I went into the office on occasion it was a ghost town.
Finally, I just couldn't really get excited about the company's product offerings. Maybe some people care, but I find 40 year old archaic database software that runs most American universities to be quite boring. As a whole the company isn't really doing much that is innovative and bleeding edge. They've consolidated a de facto monopoly on this industry through mergers and acquisitions and now seem to be focused more on maintaining rather than finding new ways to expand and grow the business. Part of this is because their clients - universities - are averse to change, so Ellucian does not change, but this can only go on for so long.
