Direct Technology reviews

It maybe would have helped to have more structured training programs, though they did often offer to pay for higher education or classes if it pertained to your job (at least in the department I was in). Honestly, my only complaint would be the salary, which is the reason I left.

To sum up, their pay is low, their benefits are bare-bones and overpriced, you will be expected to work 10-12 every day without overtime pay, they mostly offer contract positions (though they dangle a carrot of full-time employment that likely won't ever happen), they don't manage their programs or projects (which are all in shambles), there is no training, documentation or direction. You will be set up for failure, and they will demean and demoralize you for not living up to their undefined expectations. They lie about contract-to-hire positions. They have NO intention of hiring you, even if your signed contract says they will. Mine said that at the end of 90 days, if I had not been fired (yes, they actually said that), they would hire me and give me a living wage. That didn't happen. They strung me along for several more months, claiming they would be able to hire me eventually. When I threatened to leave, they finally hired me, but did not give me the raise they promised. I'm paid well below the average for a junior web developer in this area, but I am in a lead developer position for the company! The benefits for full-time workers are minimal, are provided by low-end companies, and are way over-priced. They do not pay me enough to afford $1,000 a month for bare-bones insurance! They apparently don't subsidize your benefits at all. Thankfully I was able to find my own insurance at half the price. They provide no training and no documentation, nor even a job description, but they will expect you to be an expert at your job from day one. There is no project or program management at DT. You will get no specifications, no requirements, nor even the slightest clue of what you are supposed to do, but they expect you to immediately contribute, and to do so perfectly. They are quick to tell you that your results are wrong, although they never define what "right" is. They regularly change priorities, pulling you off of one "critical urgent" task onto another, and then will attack you for not getting all of the tasks done. You will be set up for failure, and then you will be punished when you don't somehow succeed against all odds. The developers all know this as "The DT Way". The management is not open to ideas. They want you to do as your told without feedback, even if you are in a leadership role like I am. Tasks come from the customers, and are given to the developers as-is, without any thought to if it is feasible, or even if it is a good idea. The products are a mish-mash of these kinds of ill-conceived ideas. The products are riddled with defects, but defect management is non-existent. Hundreds of defects sit in the defect management system, some for many years, without any attention. Requests from customers are ignored for weeks at a time, until they threaten some sort of action against the company, at which time the managers will react and demand instant action from the developers to appease the now irate customer, which tends to be impossible to do. And then its the developer's fault, not the fault of the lazy manager. Developers are expected to work 10-12 hour days all the time, and will be reprimanded if they don't. Even contract workers are expected to work many hours of overtime without pay. They don't care that this is against labor laws! Many managers show up late-morning, socialize with the other managers for a while, then take a 1-2 hour lunch, then come back for some more socialization with other mangers for an hour or two, then go home for the day. They are almost never available to discuss issues with or to get decisions from. They typically don't do their jobs. Many of the managers are verbally abusive to the developers. They take every opportunity to belittle their employees and make them feel worthless, even if they are strong contributors. One manager in particular gets drunk at events, and then puts his hands all over the women employees, which he regularly refers to as "his girls". This is NOT a safe place for women to work! They recently moved to a new location at the crossroads of the two most unpleasant roads in Roseville (Douglas and Roseville Parkway). The few cubicle walls are only 4 feet high. The rooms are noisy all the time and filled with many distractions. You can't take phone calls at your desk because of the noise and lack of privacy. Of course, you can't make or receive calls anyway, because the VOIP system is broken. Because the pay is so low and the environment so unpleasant, they can't keep anybody in IT for very long, so issues like this tend to linger. I've had to do all my own IT work, and I've even had to triage infrastructure issues myself and provide the solutions to the (usually one remaining) IT guy to implement when he found time. The morale among the employees is extremely low. They all recognize the dismal situation. but most feel trapped. Only some have been able to escape this horrible environment. The employee turn-over is high because the working conditions are so poor. If it weren't for the poor economy and high unemployment in the Sacramento region, they likely would have no employees left! There are some positive reviews on this site about DT. Keep in mind that DT hires a propaganda manager to write up positive reviews on social sites like this. So those 5-star reviews are bogus. They also tell their employees to write up positive reviews, and even gave a training class on how to do this to all the employees in the Spring of 2014, including the verbiage and images we are supposed to use. Don't be fooled by the obviously false positive reviews!