Great for Mindless Drones - Developer CPKC Employee Review

1.0
27 Aug 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Apart from the horrible on call "compensation", pay and benefits are good.

Cons

Work-life balance is non-existent. Recent changes on on call setup can have you working 20 hours with no compensation; you should do it because you love being away from your family and getting nothing in return! Vacation policy changes are now a joke; makes taking 3 weeks extremely difficult and 4+ weeks completely impossible. Upper management hands down asinine policies on a whim that hurts everyone beneath them. Every team is in it for themselves and do not work well with other teams - nobody trusts anybody else and every little group has their own different way of doing the same thing. Every trivial thing is buried in a quagmire of policies that make getting simple things done incredible chores. Company is so stuck in its old ways that it's afraid to make any positive change. Absolutely no opportunity for anyone technical to advance their skills; all you can do is stagnate.

Explore other reviews about CPKC

5.0
20 Dec 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great pay, and benefits, good environment,

Cons

First 3-5 years stressful until you get familiar and understand how railroads work.

1
2.0
29 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Lots of opportunities to provide value

Cons

Poor leadership at the C-level. CIO has no control over the direction of the IT landscape beyond what is dictated to her by the CEO and other business owners. The IT environment is almost solely controlled by the demands of the business at the cost of being able to manage and adapt to needs. 20 years behind the market in the adoption of cloud technology. Existing cloud strategy was built by engineers pressed into the role of architects and learning as they progressed along. No automation or DevOps presence whatsoever outside what the platform teams use to simplify their own workloads. Remote work is considered a 4-letter word and is extremely frowned upon as anything other than an as-needed and pre-approved option. Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery are still done using backups and shadow copies of key infrastructure, and those key systems are decided upon at the time the tests are planned instead of testing the company's infrastructure in its entirety. Data centers are geographically separated, but are significantly disparate in what is physically hosted and accessible. Recognition and rewards are overtly encouraged, but are covertly handed out based on the level of visibility and impact to the business and stakeholders. Senior leadership constantly touts open-door policy and approachability, but give off vibes and impressions opposite of the overt policy. The company puts on a show of being diverse and inclusive. Case in point, the hiring of a female CIO. The problem is that working within an 'old boys network' leadership, it doesn't matter how inclusive and diverse the company appears because those elements are never given the opportunity to show their value.

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