Talented Raleigh C++ engineers, look elsewhere--this is a maintenance job - Senior C++ Software Engineer Align Technology Employee Review

2.0
Nov 25, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The pay is relatively high. Also a pleasant office space, and good work-life balance. These facts lift it from a 1-star rating.

Cons

Speaking to C++ engineers here--Do not be fooled by job ads which say things like "Create numerical geometrical algorithms and implement in C++" and talk about math, geometry, etc. If you pick up a position like the one I vacated, your work here will be nothing of the kind. Rather you will work for SQA, writing scripts or other testing tools, tracking down other teams' bugs, and maybe once in a while a few lines of C++ to support the existing pipeline. Everything cool seems to be always done by someone else. It *used* to be the job the advertisements describe--we built things, and it was good. But management vision changed early in 2017 and it's all about testing now. Not fun, not growing your skills in any direction you care about. Relatedly, no clear technical track. Even much smaller companies do this better. Management style is oppressively 'agile'. Your years of experience and particular expertise mean nothing; all that matters is being nice. Easily >1hr meetings/day. You are just a particularly expensive machine, replaceable and predictable. That last part is explicitly the Agile ideal, ask management. Ridiculously lax management in certain ways. People are put on patent discovery documents who made no contribution to the project, just showed up at an early meeting. Teammates skip work without consequence; sometimes with hilariously weak excuses, sometimes with none at all.

Explore other reviews about Align Technology

5.0
May 21, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great culture and work life balance

Cons

No salary adjustment for where you live

3.0
Apr 22, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It used to be a good company who made a premium product, with smart coworkers, interesting tasks that involved a lot of math problems, with detailed code reviews. It still has generous PTO, sick days and a discounted lunch (in Raleigh office).

Cons

Management changed and there is an ongoing optimisation with hidden layoffs / force quits with no severance. Biased performance reviews with high expectations. Frequent goal changes and useless projects that will eventually be terminated and the whole team will be shuffled or dismissed. Complete delivery mess. Left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. Knowledge transfer sucks. The only way to understand the feature is to dig into the code (bad for newbies). New unqualified and arrogant low-level managers and team-leads, hide their uselessness on endless meetings, blah-blah-blahing with no real impact just to add visibility. A lot of stress, 5 days from office in an open space with no remote option even for new parents. The base is low with no stocks. Pro-Russian company, previously based in Moscow, relocated the whole office to the US and Europe due to sanctions during Russian-Ukrainian war (they recently laid-off a few Ukrainian guys).

5
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