Pros
Ficosa is an excellent company full of excellent people. I worked there for 3 years, started as an engineer and worked my way up to a lead position. I started in Barcelona’s headquarters and applied for a resident engineer assignment in India right about the end of my second year. Even before getting it, I learned a lot traveling all around the world. I worked on the development of cool products for the automotive sector such as connected fleet and services devices and machine vision camera systems for electric cars and motorcycles. These technologies allow people all over the world to monitor their vehicle charge on their smartphone. Or emergency services to automatically receive a notification and data on the location and identification of the vehicle upon a crash or emergency. Drivers can turn their car AC from their office so their car is nice and warm/cool when they board it on the parking lot on a cold/hot winter/summer night/day. People may find and disable their stolen car or get a notification when it enters/leaves certain areas, get rear view park assistance or 360º camera vision and even upgrade all the systems on their car via wireless update. Futuristic services under constant improvement that are already available on millions of vehicles on the road. These fleets are also being monitored and all kinds of data collected and analyzed in order to improve car safety design and component performance, all thanks to the awesome work and products of this company and particularly the section I was assigned to. How about that? Ficosa is a consolidated 70 year old multinational company now part of Panasonic group. This guarantees lots of stable revenue and synergies and the opportunity to participate in cutting edge projects and concept developments. The next generation of V2X connected vehicles, for example. From battery charge systems and brake controls to gear shifters and radio antennas, pretty much every known car manufacturer in the world is using Ficosa’s products. Barcelona’s site is the headquarters and main engineering center and production plant. The engineering center in India is quite new, and has an abundance of excellent resources and programs. Its fast growth provides lots of opportunities for career development. Both places are great in terms of work conditions, with managers focused on fostering careers and skill development, rather than punishing the employees for the mistakes made while developing them.
Cons
This is more of a general warning than a negative; I actually consider it a plus: Don’t expect to be just sitting there warming up your chair and waiting for corporate overlords' commands while trying your best to do the bare minimum. You will get bored to death and will be fired soon. The team will always be there to support you and everyone makes an active effort to have the best possible work environment and on-boarding experience, but keep in mind they hire forward thinking engineers, not drones. Passive employees who always have to be told exactly what to do and exactly how to do it step by step while under strict supervision lasted very little and of course they blamed the company for getting rid of them fast. If you want that kind of job this is not the company for you. Honestly there are plenty of corporations with those kind of standards hiring right now so you can afford to go somewhere else, therefore avoid Ficosa!