Pros
-You learn a lot at the beginning -Majority of co-workers are great to work with -Pays well with a little experience -Benefits are pretty good (as of writing this) -Work from home/remote -My initial first few years were great, but it started going downhill (and rapidly) in the last year or so. My situation was a bit unique though so I do not recommend basing any decisions of my review alone. -Promotion money is very good, raises between roles are not (see cons) -A con would be that we are tracked (metric wise) for code pushes, but the reason this is a pro is because to the end of my time there they did not seem to hold it over any ones head and kept their word that it was just for 'overall group' performance, and not to scrutinize someone. I do have to applaud them for it. -Not too many people are all about the jargon (for developers) and using the latest and greatest. There are some, but I imagine that's the case anywhere. So it's not too bad.
Cons
-Generally feels like people WANT to do good (developers), but sometimes can't. Either because of the sprints or because of too tight of a schedule. Doesn't really feel like a lot of creative freedom in that sense in development. -Changes are sometimes introduced that are not easily ported from one platform to another. And there is little consulting with the other platforms prior to introduction. (My situation was a bit unique, so I would not let this one be too discouraging from my review alone) -Does feel more corporate now (acquired by Vista). So there are raise caps and such now. Which is fine, a company needs to be profitable after all. So not a major complaint. -People outside of your department tend to 'appear to listen', but don't really actually appear to listen? Or maybe they're just powerless to address actual concerns (even at the very top?). So take everything with a grain of salt. You start to catch on pretty quick that acknowledgements of your concerns don't really translate to actual changes or action items on anyone's parts. -Health benefits leave a little to be desired. But HSA is nice -A lot of management managing management (which I know is essential for larger corporations), but it just feels like a lot gets lost in communication. It may be that some people have too much sway or too little sway. Maybe someone above is getting micromanaged and denied creative control over products. It's hit or miss with your managers on dev side. You really gotta push for what you think is essential). -Some dev environments are incredibly unstable (like the ones other dev-teams rely on). I am not necessarily blaming the developers as it might be a result of tight deadlines and too much packed into those deadlines. Most people I speak to are hard working and have good intentions on the developer side, but maybe don't have the resources (time) they need. It did seem like this was getting better when I left, but it's hard to tell if it'll stay that way. Comes back around to possible poor management somewhere in the hierarchy. I could not speak for their teams, only an impression. -Promotions are pretty much on a time track. If you start Junior, you'll be a Standard D in 2 years. Then you'll be level 2 in 2 years. And then in 2-3 you'll be a Senior developer. The money is great for those promotions, however. Between those promotions it is now capped at a low % (likely because of Vista). -C-suite seems somewhat unstable. -Hiring internally seems oddly lacking. Sometimes not, sometimes it does. -We have a software architect, but I'm not sure what they actually do (my position is unique I want to remind you, so maybe the product I worked on was not a consideration). -Sometimes there appear to be jobs that you wonder what their actual role is, but that's not entirely fair since I don't actually watch them. They may actually be useful positions. -There are some strange 'success' metrics used (which I believe are primarily for sales) that we were originally considered for as well. But they were complete garbage in my opinion. -Could probably use some more code reviews to ensure stability. And I mean actual code reviews, not '1 line gets 1 hour', but a '300 line change gets one minute because I can't be bothered'. Might relieve some of the instability in some code bases. -Some people like to pull tech words so far out of the void that it baffles me. You don't have a lot of these people which is nice, but there are some who are all about the latest (and greatest in their opinion). So Jargon, etc. -They did have a big round of layoffs (I was not a part of them). Things were going downhill before that. I would take some of the heated reviews mentioning it with a grain of salt. Not that I think the points are all invalid, but some exaggerate a lot. One mentioned 'firing and then rehiring', but there are very little rehires/hires going on at the time. There were definitely some and it felt like a 'fire the expensive people, hire cheaper', but it was not as widespread. Development teams have not seen many (if any) significant new hires as far as I'm aware. Maybe some. But I could be wrong as well.