Pros
- Awesome people - Great employee engagement - Regular (once a month on average) team lunches - Christmas party is great (varies depending on what site you are on) - AGM (Annual General Meeting): They fly you and your family out to a sunny destination. 3 nights of fun, spectacular events. Meetings during the morning, but they are very well run and are very useful for keeping everyone informed on the progress of the company. - Family friendly, but probably better suited to a single, or easily relocatable young couple - Can make a great salary if you are willing to move and happen to be relocated - Paid overtime which is almost unheard of in IT - Open door policy, lots of help with work if you ask for it - Work involves mostly configuration of vendor product but also can involve a lot of interacting with the client and others on the team. - Not just working behind a desk all day (although there can be a lot of that). Meetings, presentations, business requirement discussions, demos, these are all part of the job. - Overtime: If you are on a site that is working a lot of overtime you can make A LOT of money. However a lot of overtime also means you don't have a lot of time to do stuff outside of work. - Last I head, average age of the company was around 26-27. YOUNG. Which can be great if you are also young and want to do young person things. - FAST is the best in the business. Yes, we are consultants, but we aren't the type that Govs have grown so wary of. Fast is ALWAYS on time, and on budget. We always get the job done, and stick around to make sure it was done right. The company is growing at a staggering rate because they are the best, by far, at what they do. This company is only going to get bigger.
Cons
- Quality of employment is largely dependent on which site you are on. If you get put on a site with only a few people, then you won't be having the big Christmas parties or going out to bars after roll outs. If you get placed on a site with 30+ people, then it's a whole different experience. - Relocation: A large portion of your salary is allocated to relocation. If you refuse to relocate, they will cut a big chunk of that portion. You rarely get to choose where you go. Oversees you almost always have a choice, as it is volunteer first. It should be noted that the company takes care of you if you relocate. They pay for moving costs, and on some sites give generous living bonuses for expensive cities. However, the cost of breaking your lease, selling your car at a loss, etc. also adds up and can be a significant con. - Salary tied to relocation: If you are on a site which is making a lot of money, you will get much larger raises than the sites which are in product support mode. If you are relocated, you usually get a substantial raise. But you don't always get to relocate if you want to, so this can be financially stifling. - At times an uncomfortable work environment. You are a consultant. The company gets paid an exorbitant amount for you to be there (you make a fraction of their take). You are working with Government employees who sometimes see you as the enemy. Most of the time FAST's great customer relations and unparalleled ability to produce what they say they will, will win over the Gov employees, but there will always be holdouts. - Not a lot of feedback from PMs but this may be site specific as well. - Not a lot of job security. People get fired. Not that often, but it does happen and usually with little to no warning. - Overtime: You may not be put on a site that works overtime (prod support). Then your salary is what it is. This also means you get more time off, but if you are on a prod support site, this may mean there isn't much to do because you have very few people and are in a strange city. - Starting only 2 weeks vacation. First 40 hours of overtime can be converted into another week of vacation. Here not having the overtime also becomes an issue. - You are given a salary adjustment every year. The amount seems to come from nowhere.