Edaptive Computing reviews about "team"

Unethical behavior: employees are constantly encouraged to leave positive reviews, especially at once a month birthday/company update meetings with emphasis on appropriately spacing them out so that they do not look suspicious/untrustworthy. This was even brought up during private job offer and salary discussions with the CEO, which was uncomfortable and definitely made it seem like leaving reviews, particularly in places where your identity can be reverse engineered, can earn you kudos with her. I was especially encouraged to emphasize my gender(female) in my review - which makes sense, considering my last estimate of ECI's gender distribution as >95% male. My general impression is that until recently, the company was 100% male. Intentional mismanagement and confusion: Every discussion with the CEO is intentionally disorienting - questions will be redirected rather than answered. As I approached the completion of my masters degree, I was brought into a meeting with her to discuss a job offer. I was not made an official offer at that time, and was told they would get back to me about details/salary/etc... Two weeks later, without ever making me an official offer, she redirected the entire discussion through my supervisor by telling them I had already accepted despite never being made a concrete offer. The entire ordeal was very forced and awkward. Although her language was very positive during that meeting and subsequent meetings about transitioning to full-time work, I was never given an official offer letter or told if the salary I asked for would be granted despite waiting ~6 weeks. Also, she was clearly shocked that I asked for $60k - $70k, and immediately launched into a spiel about the benefits ECI offers and how "benefits account for 40% of a total salary". Sorry to say but no, they don't - salary and benefits are and should be two independent factors when considering job offers. Ridiculous process management: every team is made to follow Agile methodologies, even if they do not in any way develop software. This is done so that ECI can achieve CMMI level 5, which I understand as a business goal. What I do not understand is how they expect their employees to have any time to actually do work when their internal processes demand constant, repetitive documentation (the exact opposite of truly agile practices, by the way). Intrusive micromanagement: every single request must be made in advance, and approved by all (supervisor, project manager, CEO at the minimum) before being granted. This includes any and all flex-time, like leaving an hour early for an appointment and making it up later. So, while ECI claims to be flexible their process is anything but - supervisors alone should be trusted to handle such approvals rather than involving a whole chain of people each and every time (which I assume only exists to discourage people from placing requests). Also, I observed a lot of undocumented, "unapproved", and therefore unpaid overtime for supervisors and upper management. It seems that at this point most of these employees just come in late since they know they'll be there late, and overtime is subject to the extensive approval process outlined previously. Pay is low for all tiers of employees, and initial hiring position NEVER follows internal documentation. On their internal file system is it easy to find a spreadsheet of their positions and the corresponding tasks and minimum education required. From this, it was obvious that not only was I going to be offered a lower title (and I am assuming lower pay) than I should have been, most of my colleagues were in the exact same position. As other reviewers have remarked, working conditions were cramped. Despite just expanding into a new building, most employees work in a tightly packed bullpen, with shallow separators between each desk. This environment is created intentionally so that supervisors and upper management can always watch screens and make comments - my supervisor was pleasant to work for in every way, but others I observed were much pettier. It is also incredibly distracting and loud, because there are always people talking and walking through - music is a necessity to focus. For those considering interviewing: in my experience, potential employees are intentionally kept away from the working environment and are only walked through the entrance/conference rooms; in retrospect, this is the only interview I have ever had where I was not given a tour of the facilities in any way. So, please ask for a tour and make your own judgement based on their response.

Additional responsibilities beyond job description

Currently performing a higher proportion of federal contract work than is probably ideal, given the government's tendency to rearrange their own priorities and funding levels based on political, economic, and budgetary conditions. Owner involvement level can seem intrusive to employees who aren't accustomed to the small business environment.

ECI expects employees to work hard and do their best. If your interest is to do bare minimum work to slide by then ECI will not be the right fit for you.

Training is very unstructured. My training was to be given links to the process manuals and then spend a few days in pair programming to work with my mentor. After that i was basically turned loose and told to ask questions if i had them. I didn't get a formal overview of the product I was working on outside of a very detailed manual that was too much to digest without understanding more about the project. That said, I always had people available for questions when i had them, but sometimes it is hard to know what to ask until knowledge of the big picture has grown.

* Processes can be annoying at times. * Not many in-person events to meet team members in person.

It is hard to meet all of the amazing employees, there are new faces hired on weekly basis at ECI.

It is the most mismanaged, micro-managed environment I've ever been in. If it wasn't destroying the careers of some really great people, it'd be laughable. There is a culture of distrust and destruction that is driven by the senior management team. The physical environment is terrible. The office environment is dirty and staff are crammed into 4-foot wide workspaces. There are ~60 employees. Only one woman, who happens to be the co-owner. You are lied to.. from your very first interview. About the company. About the culture. About the work you will do. About everything. These lies continue while you work there. Eventually you will be pitted against your colleagues in a crazy he-said-he-said world in which nobody really said anything but the management team is out to get you, or them, and so makes a bunch of stuff up. After you work there awhile you kind of get used to it, in a sick Stockholm-syndrome kind of way. Its only when you get out and look back in that you realize how absolutely crazy it was to work there. There are questionable time and billing practices. There are unreasonable, unjustified, and frankly unbearable rules and regulations about how you must conduct yourself while on the job. There is no room for professional growth: You are either a developer, or a project manager/developer. Getting "promoted" to PM gets you more responsibility and eventually leads to your systematic destruction, not more compensation. It is an unquestionably toxic environment that should be avoided at all costs.