The pros are pretty much your co-workers that will help you or offer you a shoulder to cry. There is one review here that made me laugh so hard because this person had the full CSI experience “A sinking ship, don't even bother.” Fully illustrates the life of a programmer or developer and two other reviews were very informative “Don't waste your time and skills here. CSI is not a place for career growth.” And “CSI needs to get it together”
CONS
Consistent lay offs
Lose a client, lose staff roller coaster (someday commented this and I couldn’t agree more).
Little or No training.
Revolving Door (here today and gone tomorrow) sometimes you don’t even get a chance to meet that person assigned to your team!
Most positions required to put in long hours, work weekends and be on call.
Everybody was in a salary freeze for 3 years. If you get a raise (that if you get one), prepare for a 1% or 1.5% (and it will never match the cost of living) be happy with that or no raises ever. They can start another salary freeze at any time so don’t push it.
Negative environment, most people there hate it, frustration and stress is on the roof! At least everybody has something in common right?
I can't think of any pros that were beneficial to me in a personal or professional way. As many here mentioned, technology is outdated, custom made and the experience you gain here can’t be applied in other companies.
I am seeing positive 4 and 5 star reviews of the company here and that makes me think that management is desperately trying to increase their ratings by writing some reviews themselves or were made by new employees within their first months or year that have not yet experienced the big waves that will soon hit them.
People would continually leave and they would not be replaced, some are replaced by new graduates that would instantly quit once they had a feeling for the departments, the stress and the long hours.
No real advancement opportunities, I have seen people in the same position for many years. When they promote people, they usually play favoritism. They promote who they like and not who is best prepared for the position. This is why they lose many talented people.
Most promotions are just lateral moves, you get a new title and you are given more responsibilities. The only increase you get is an increase in your workload. Forget about that raise/incentive for your new position “you should be happy with your fancy title!” I think of many examples of people who had these “promotions” but I rather don’t say anything and maintain these examples anonymous for their own good.
When people leave, they don’t fill the position. They give you all of the responsibilities with no financial incentive. Call this "an opportunity to prove yourself". No, even if you managed to do it, don’t even think they will give you a promotion. You just proved you can take more work and that's what they will give you, more work.
I have a lot of ESM friends. Some have quit and some are still in the company. My advice to you is to think it twice because if you have kids, this position may not be for you. This position requires working after hours and some weekends if you are in a project or onsite and the position requires a good amount of travel. Most ESM’s are either recently graduated young girls or single women. Everything is all good until they marry or decide to have kids and that’s when problems start, when you want to spend more time with your kid or significant other and that’s not possible because of your job. This is why many quit or don’t come back from maternity leave. The veterans ESM’s who have been with the company for so long either have grown up kids or are working part-time, a privilege for a very few. If you are looking for a work-life balance position, this is probably not for you.
