Alten Careers and Employment

Leader in Engineering and IT ServicesALTEN supports its customers’ development strategies in the areas of innovation, R&D and technological information systemsSo I recommend this

Senior Project Leader, Control Systems Software Development in Derby, Derbyshire

on 3 June 2022

Excellent career opportunities

Fast paced but very good career progression due to high level of organic growth. Requires dedication and commitment to meet high levels of quality expectations.

Manager in Glasgow, Glasgow

on 3 March 2022

Job roles never explained

Full of very unprofessional and rude business managers that are terribly inexperienced and have no knowledge of the people they employ and or the client and the clients true end requirements.

Systems Engineer in Crawley, West Sussex

on 2 June 2021

Profits before people.

In my time at Alten I was fortunate enough to experience what it's like to watch a company transform itself completely with a very negative result.When I joined in 2019 Alten was very much a people-orientated engineering company that emphasised rewards in exchange for hard work. Their recruitment process seemed honest and they were very straightforward about the way that the company worked and what was expected of their employees. At the time I was looking for a step-up from my previous job and this seemed like a good move. Yes, I might sacrifice some of my work-life balance but overall it seemed like a good place to gain some more experience.The team I joined was a bit rough around the edges but had a positive working culture that emphasised process improvement and a high rate of work delivery and quality. I learned a lot in the first few months and I count myself as privileged to have worked alongside my team and to have accomplished as much as we did in such a short time.Unfortunately Alten was hit very hard by the economic effects of the Covid pandemic and had to make aggressive staff cuts to balance the books. It seemed like they conducted this process fairly openly but right from the outset it was clear that a lot of people were going to lose their jobs. Whilst I wasn't one of them I do feel sorry for the people who were made redundant as they had pretty much no chance to offer viable alternatives to the redundancy police. The company conducted a consultation and rejected the plans offered by those who they were consulting with because ultimately they didn't meet the goals of the aggressive cost-cutting measures.Following this process Alten went through a short period of rapid restructuring, following which it was remodelled as much more of an outsourcing company than an engineering outfit. The emphasis was now on recruiting in to target areas, winning contracts and making money. From this point staff needs were largely ignored and though some business managers tried to speak for the needs of the consultants the overriding culture was very much that profit must come first.In this environment I was parachuted in to a project with the promise of the opportunity to run my own team and project in the very near future with the additional promise of a salary increase and bonus when the money was available. Both of these promises turned out to be unfulfillable as I was entirely unsuited for the project at hand and there was absolutely no opportunity to establish a team at all. After a few months I highlighted my unhappiness to my Alten management team and received basically no reply. My Alten management did attempt to intervene on my behalf but these efforts were so mismanaged and lacklustre that they ended up making the situation much worse.Overall I would not recommend Alten, in it's current guise, to anyone looking for a career move. Whilst I had some good experiences in the beginning, Alten is very much an outsourcing company that is focused on getting as much out of it's employees and giving as little as possible in return for the maximum profit. I'm very disappointed at this result as I had high hopes for my time with the company but I'm not interested in working for a company that prioritises profits before people and I would recommend that anyone who feels the same should stay away.

Systems Engineer [Traction & Power Systems Engineer] in Derby

on 7 September 2020

System engineer

An excellent company to work for with excellent salary package. You will be given the opportunity to work on cutting edge engineering projects in and around UK

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Interview insights

Insights from 34 Indeed users who have interviewed with Alten within the last 5 years.

Average experience

Interview is average

Process takes about a month

Interview questions

Short brief experience related

Shared on 16 June 2022

Usual work experience questions.

Shared on 18 January 2021

- My motivation to work - Career and wage expectations - Present briefly my professional experience - Highlight the biggest challenges at work - Refer to some results and achievements during previous experiences

Shared on 8 July 2019

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