Very positive, with reasonable freedom to choose what kind of career I want
Pros
Personnel in science is contained, so there are lots of opportunities in deciding what problems to work on, and good resources to tackle them. The technical groups are in general very good and populated with bright minds, with a passion for their research and often excellent ideas. Job locations are diverse and some of them quite exciting. Overall Chevron offers excellent job stability.
Cons
Chevron is an extremely conservative company. Decisions are very slow, requiring the involvement of too many people to reach a consensus which is often the trivial minimum common denominator among the different parties around a table. Consequently decisions are inefficient, often driven by bureaucreacy, silly rules of the corporation which have no relevance and no positive impact on the task at hand. Chevron's personnel suffers from an enormous amount of brain-washing by the corporation. Individual and innovative decisions are often seen as impossible, rejected, pushed back and discarded. There is very little interest for changing methods, for evolving towards the new and untested, for pushing the envelope towards excellence. The company is in the middle-pack and seems to be interesetd in staying in the middle of the oil pack. The overall inability and lack of interest to excell is the essence of Chevron, as if by not on the forefront they will be left alone to survive. The company wants to survive, not to make an impact. The company does not trust innovation and technology and is very slow at adopting it. The company invests too little in technology, with an intrinsic, historical inability to understand that management, finance, marketing and other non-core sectors of the company are simply a ridiculous over-head which produces zero value.
