Pros
- In August I am starting coursework to get my masters in computer science and if I space the courses out properly SPS Commerce will be paying every cent of the cost. - I would like to give a specific example to contradict some of the earlier comments about management not listening to the employees. I am a Senior Software Engineer on the Engineering team. Today I sent an email to my boss, Director of BI Development, with concerns that we did not have proper tooling or processes in place for one of our products. It was causing myself and the Lead Software Engineer of my team to spend most of our time assisting the implantation team instead of contributing to the velocity of new features. To detail the amount of time I was spending on implementations, I compiled a list of everything I had worked on the past two days and there was nothing that would contribute to new features. Within minutes of receiving the email, he responded with the Senior Director of Product Manager and Product Manager copied, explaining that we need to hold off on new features and concentrate on tooling and process. The Product Manager instantly agreed and that is the direction we are moving in for the upcoming sprints. I think the people that were complaining that management doesn’t listen to their ideas didn’t go about presenting their ideas in a fully thought out way. Complaining at lunch to your buddy isn’t the same as pulling together data, coming up with a solution, and asking for buy in from your managers. Senior management is very responsive when presented well thought out ideas. - As far as some of the pay complaints are concerned, I think we all wish we made more. But I looked over my own pay history going back to when I was hired by Edifice, through the acquisition from SPS, and up until today. In February I will have been here 10 years, so I have had 8 annual reviews and was promoted twice during those reviews. I’m averaging an 8.47% yearly raise. Most of that is from the promotions, but I would sign up for that kind of consistent growth over the next decade.
Cons
- There are times when I would set different priorities than we receive from our Product Managers. But I’m pretty sure that would be the case no matter where I was working. Technical vs Business is not a battle exclusive to SPS. Even when I don’t fully agree with the priorities that are given to me, I do understand the reasoning. - At times things get a little contentious between teams. I wish I could do more to help other groups and they had more time to help me, but we have our primary responsibilities that must come first.
