Pros
Livable wage OK benefits Lots of holidays (changes by year, but around 14) LinkedIn Learning subscriptions Wrote code that actually went to production Some progress has been made automating builds and testing, varies by team and project Decent work-life balance (generally not expected to work over 40 hours, occasional releases around 8-9pm which can be done from home) I worked with some great people (although most of them have also left or put in notice).
Cons
Monitoring via software (Sapience) started way before the pandemic - slices time at narrow intervals and does not reflect full time worked. In Cleveland, comped parking is about a mile from the office (municipal lot off highway 2) I joined less than a year before Covid started, so most of my remaining comments reflect the company's behavior during the pandemic. The company initially seemed to be sincerely concerned with employee wellbeing when they announced everyone would switch to remote work suddenly at the end of March 2020. They then also used that as an excuse to not pay out bonuses or raises, and to not offer promotions, even though the review process was complete and changes should have been in effect within days. They did this without making an official statement - just kept not answering questions and not delivering. Over the summer there were layoffs, although the company would only refer to them as furloughs and kept insisting no one had been laid off. Those employees never got to come back, although hiring continued. In response to ongoing complaints and questions, they finally paid out bonuses in late summer. There is not official structure to how bonuses are handled, so it was just an unexplained check for whoever got them. They continued to not answer questions about raises and promotions. At a town hall (video call) in summer 2020, they presented a "staged approach" to return to office, apparently hoping to get people to return without forcing it. Having the option for people with poor working conditions at home was nice, although most people did not choose to go (in early 2021 they disclosed office attendance was around 7%). During the town hall, direct questions were asked about laid off workers returning, what was happening with raises and promotions, and what the post-Covid office policy would be - all were deflected, except for an insistence that the company would never stay fully remote (despite continually strong performance during remote work). One attendee suggested that good employees would be lost to competitors if these issues weren't answered and flexible work wasn't preserved; the CIO laughed in response as he dismissed the concern. In November, the company pivoted to discussing 2021 raises and bonuses. In early 2021 at another town hall, they disclosed that we had met all sales goals and performed well overall - backpedaling when asked questions about raises and ongoing remote work. Raises and promotions were actually handled on schedule (or close enough) in April 2021, but the vast majority of people I talked to got 1% or less after getting skipped entirely in 2020. In mid or late April 2021, they made an announcement via company-wide email that everyone would be required to return to the office full time starting June 1. The related intranet article featured several dozens of comments from employees expressing negative feedback. HR responded with canned messaging that often failed to address the concerns being brought up, and linked to external resources that contradicted the company's decision. They eventually locked the thread to prevent further comments - 100% of the comments given by non-management employees were negative. Every single positive comment was from management, leadership, or an executive assistant. Specific to software development: Pay is pretty low, and several people I talked to said meaningful raises came only from promotions or counter-offers when threatening to quit. There is very little direction or cohesion, especially across teams. Everything is the top priority, so there's no actual clear priority. Expected timelines are not reasonable, and are not adjusted based on changes - just orders to do everything now. Outsourced developers seem to be continuously brought in, while in-house staff dwindles. Several people speculated out loud that this was an intentional move by the company to stop having internal development. I don't think that's entirely the case, but it's a reasonable conclusion.
