Sinking ship - Software Engineer Marks & Spencer Employee Review

1.0
Oct 13, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- 20% discount in stores - You'll get lots of experience on how traditional big companies work. M&S being a century old company, there are a lot of lessons to be learnt.

Cons

As of Autumn 2016, don't touch this company with a 10 feet pole. M&S realised they were falling behind around 5 years ago and decided to make a massive investment in digital, which drew a lot of talented people and made it an OK place to work as a software engineer. However, M&S as a whole has continued to underperform and the new CEO has embarked into a massive operation to cut costs everywhere: Old employees have been bullied to accept worse pension plans, hundreds of people have been made redundant, new IT projects are exclusively being contracted in India and all engineering roles have been moved far from the city centre. The chaos that has ensued is of spectacular proportions and leadership have made it worse with every attempt to mitigate the damage. Mass resignations have followed with whole engineering teams disappearing in a matter of weeks, leaving behind a large trail of projects and products nobody knows how to maintain and junior people who don't know who they report to anymore because everyone technical between them and the CTO has gone.

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5.0
Aug 5, 2025
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CEO approval
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Pros

I love how positive the working environment

Cons

I dont like some of the names of the bread

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Marks & Spencer Response
11mo
Hi there, thanks so much for leaving such a great review – it’s lovely to hear that you enjoyed working for us! We're so grateful for your kind words, so thanks for sharing your review with us and the Glassdoor community. Our success relies on the dedication of employees like yourself, so we thank you for all your hard work! Wishing you all the best, Marks and Spencer
1.0
Jul 27, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-20% discount -I must enter 5 words

Cons

Never before have I worked for a company where the threat of gross misconduct is thrown around constantly by management. Senior members of staff have been given wrriten warnings over sudden changes in policy. Instead of carrot and stick you're just given the stick. A sudden change in policy comes in and immediately a TM or TSM will tell you "if you can't do this you will recieve a written warning or disciplinary." That is a best case scenario, the alternative is nobody tells you and you continue to do everything as normal and you get punished for an absolute absence of communication. Regional managers pressure Store Managers to hand out punishments like quotas. Worst of all, the company promotes immature and lazy managers for the most part, who will happily stand around doing absolutely nothing, but drive workers aged 60+ like a cart horse. Sorting basic worker's rights like annual leave is a chore to them, and they act as though they are doing you a favour when you do the bare minimum. Favouritism in my store is endemic. Not all managers are like this, my store manager just happens to like a handful of staff and puts down everyone else.

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Marks & Spencer Response
11mo
Thanks for raising your concerns. We're really sorry to hear you’re unhappy and we want you to know that at M&S, we care deeply about doing the right thing and acting with integrity, building trust, supporting one another and taking the time to listen. You have already addressed the first step of voicing your views on here, and now we encourage you to talk to your Line Manager. If you feel you cannot approach your Line Manager, then tell a more senior person or someone who you feel most at ease with, for example your BIG rep or your HR Business Partner. Thanks again for sharing, - Marks and Spencer
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