Pros
- Great place to start with little to no IT experience to learn about the various fields, vendors, equipment, methodologies and soft skills of IT. This applies to someone who has been out of IT for awhile and would like to get up to speed on the latest technology and trends. - Overall there is a lack of micro managing, depending on some things such as the issue/sales rep/etc, which helps keep the environment relaxed as long you can manage yourself appropriately. - Loose policy on overtime and there is on-call to fill in the pay gap.
Cons
- First and foremost this is a sales company. Nothing else comes before sales and for IT this leads to a wide variety of issues that plague both the IT department and it seems the company's various other service departments. - The helpdesk is constantly overburdened with the nonstop push by sales for signing on new customers and is understaffed by the inability to hire staff proactively with the growth and time it takes to train new technicians before they become a net contributor to department. - This problem is made even worse with a horrible incentive structure for the sales reps by paying them upfront on the contracts they sign. After the deal has been made they are out of there with little regard for the customer or the IT department. In my time it appeared that IT had little to no ability or desire to push back on bad deals that were outside IT's scope of support / business model. This can be any number or combination of things such as legacy systems with no plans on migrating, systems we have little or no experience with (POS, etc.), legacy or niche software we're unable to support effectively, odd hours of operation that are outside of IT's own, and customer locations outside the range of field techs. This problem isn't with every single sales rep in the company and some do genuinely work hard with IT, but for everyone of those there seems to be 10 that don't care at all. - Compensation is below industry standard and raises are few and far between. This issue leads to why inexperienced people are hired and experienced technicians typically pass on the offers given. - Lack of formal training and the policy that was coming into place for certifications before I left required staying with the company for a duration of time. If you have the drive and ambition you can take advantage of the opportunities to learn though. - The prior statements give rise to spotty incomplete work everywhere that generate almost nonstop “fires” to be addressed further slowing down the IT operation. - This chaotic environment leads to many good technicians leaving and their workload being shared by the rest of the department that is already over burdened. Often there is meetings about addressing the departments issues, however most of this is only to address symptoms instead of the root causes. At best this environment is great to begin your career to see how a IT operation should NOT be run along with the skills you pickup along the way, as long as you can endure the chaotic environment.
