Long View Systems reviews

Being headquartered in Alberta, Canada, Long View has historically been heavily dependent on Oil and Gas customers. Given that O&G is flailing in the worst possible way as reflected in gas prices, Long View Systems is going through significant turmoil. They are struggling to make up for the lack of project work with managed services and hosted cloud customers. They do not have the resources to competently support managed services. Their cloud offerings are very pricey compared to other options. That said, this is a very difficult place to work. The managed services team is expected to be responsive 24/7/365 with no breaks. Work a 14 hour day and the next day you'd better be at your desk by 7:30a or you will hear about it. Your weekend and evening time will be constantly interrupted. There is no on call rotation. Unless you come in as an Architect or some other high level position, everyone gets the same title of Systems Consultant. Someone with 15-20 years experience gets the same title as someone with 2. Does not matter what you do. You don't know this until you get your offer letter. Very high churn rate. People would be there one day and gone the next. The Denver office is not that big. I saw at least 10 people leave...including the two that provided references for me. This was at all levels and departments. The only people that had more than 1 year under their belts were brought up from the NOC/Service desk. New recruits from outside have a 90% failure rate given the environment (per my manager). Typical silos that you see anywhere. Project/ Architect resources are hesitant to wade too deeply in to operations, Service Desk reps don't want to touch something due to the way costs are billed inter-department, managed services is hamstrung by the contract verbiage meaning work needs to be kicked up to a project resource. Constant chaos and stress. You are only as good as your last billable hour. Technical talent is exploited while Account (Sales) and Project Managers reap the rewards. Voice valid concerns to People Services and get vilified for it.

Culture has shifted away from being people focused towards being profit focused given the economic conditions. This has been a big adjustment and not overly pleasant. Hope this isn't the new norm. Lots of lay offs this past year, has certainly impacted moral and therefore there is no longer a sense of job security. This would have been an easier pill to swallow if it had been communicated properly (or at all). No looking for promises of jobs, just insight into the plan (and that there is a plan), that Long View will survive (because I believe it will). Lack of work-life balance. You have to push back otherwise you will be working 60+ hours per week and that will become what's expected of you. Lack of communication throughout the organization.