Pros
Best reason to work for ARGO is to get a paycheck until you find a job at a real company. Seriously, benefits are OK (average). Office space is mostly nice.
Cons
Management at ARGO has no clue what it takes to get things done today. They are clueless at to emerging technologies, methods, and processes. They reuse old technologies and band-aid it continuously. Project Management is abysmal operating without any established processes. Ask a senior person about a process to follow and it will take a week of reminders before they tell you to go see someone. Speaking of going to see someone, good luck finding them. While there are developers, QA, BA's, etc, they are not grouped together. They just plop an employee into any available cube on any of their three floors. That means there is no group support or feedback. Feedback in performance is scattered at best. It took me two years before I got my first review and then it was only an oral one. Bonuses are not paid out as they state when they hire you. They say 15 to 20 percent on your anniversary, but it usually winds up being 5 percent whenever they get around to doing it. They did one employee survey, but the results were never published or acted upon (I wonder why? all negative?). The few subject matter experts they have are overworked. The majority of their staff is made up of new hires and fresh trainees. The turnover rates are high as people realize there are no career advancement opportunities available. They leave as soon as possible, leaving the more experienced people overworked (and underpaid). The company itself is not growing. They have a niche market and they know it. But that market is contracting and they have no idea what direction to move in. Instead of getting new customers, their only growth pattern is to sell updates and upgrades to existing customers. Any efforts to realize new markets or ideas are thwarted by the corner office. That corner office, while the company founder, is the main impediment to any growth. If its not his idea then its a bad idea. They are a stain on a resume and it takes some creative wording to make your work experience with them relative to your career field.
