Beyond, Inc. reviews

Their non-compete agreement is ridiculous. Get a copy of it before you entertain an offer. Team leads are given the late night on call responsibilities. Nepotism and cronyism in the company is rampant. Despite management saying they hate politics, politics are prevalent, nurtured, and only growing in importance. A sideways look, a word thought to be disrespectful, or bringing up concerns about the group think strategy of the day are quite literally fireable offenses. Critical thinking and good project execution seem a distant second to getting along. Accountability appears to flow only one way. The practice of hiring from within and cronyism has led to several in positions of authority who from my perspective perform their responsibilities poorly and are unlikely to leave since neither their experience nor aimless performance is likely to qualify them for comparable position and pay in other companies.

This has been the busiest, most engaging place in which I've ever worked, but I know other people on other teams don't have that experience. The reason I've been busy lately is that most of my team was moved to new project teams, leaving two people to continue development on a schedule designed for six people. The focus on new-new-new projects and the disconcerting tendency to move 50% of the IT staff to the current hot project means older software may be neglected for years, until the business, CSRs, or the partners scream loudly and often enough to get someone (or some team) tasked with implementing a hurried fix. It's tough to recruit full-time employees to the company because it's in Salt Lake City. A lot of people don't want to move to the "middle of nowhere" and don't want to be paid below market-leading wages. When I was hired, Overstock claimed to pay top dollar for developers in the Salt Lake Valley but can't compete in 2013 when other companies (like Goldman Sachs) offer 20% more. Your success, promotions, raises, etc., are tied to how much your dev lead and director like you. That's true everywhere but it's disappointing that low-level managers don't get better training in evaluation and coaching and that some dev leads are kept in positions they're ill-suited to fill. With the recent (announced April 2013) changes to the IT organization management structure some of these problems may begin to be alleviated. Promotions to new positions (not just a title) are uncommon and are based on popularity, so if you're looking to move up you'll need to practice your politics. The company is rapidly building out office space in their SLC warehouse/call center location and relocating development and business teams there. With the bifurcated company Presidency (one based in Cottonwood Heights, one based in West Valley) a lot of teams are being moved "voluntarily." (Seriously? Would you say no?) This has been unpopular with people who chose to live near Cottonwood Heights to be close to work. I feel like the IT organization is not longer committed to learning, developing employees, and improvement, all characteristics that attracted me to the position in the first place.