Great place to work. Yes, there are challenges, but the grass isn't always greener...
Pros
Great benefits: - 401k with 50% match on your first $5,000 ($2,500 free money) - Employee Stock Purchase Plan (ESPP) with 85% buy-in on up to 10% of your base salary (essentially a 15% guaranteed return with potential for much more) - Lots of Paid Time Off (PTO) - after 4 full years, you accrue PTO at 9 hours every 1/2 month (that's 27 days for the year) plus 2 personal days...yep, that's one day shy of 6 weeks of PTO per year - Flexibility for work/life balance - option to work from home on occasion as long as you don't abuse it and are productive (yes, you're still held accountable for your job) - Most departments now have training budget for personal growth (this has been a weakness in the past) - Pay is very competitive. I’m sure this varies by department and role, but I think it’s certainly competitive. Good annual bonus payouts too. - Opportunity for advancement – this is all relative. Sure, it’s a relatively small company so there aren’t THAT many opportunities, but if you’re a leader, you will be recognized and promoted in accordance with your strengths. New Office is great...spacious...and brand new. A huge break-room with two big screen TVs and the back patio are great. Great for eating lunch in the office, but still getting away from your desk. Lots of Great People: - As with any company, there are “bad eggs” lying around, but the far majority of people around here are hard-working, smart, ethical people who want the company to be successful, and want to have fun doing it. Strong culture and principals…things like: - Feedback is a gift. Yes, there are some folks that don’t take feedback very well, but the majority of the management team genuinely appreciate feedback, even negative feedback, and will make an effort to fix the problem. - Have an open kitchen. I’ve interacted with every one of the senior management group and feel comfortable walking into any of their offices and talking to them about an issue. I’m sure there are others who don’t feel comfortable doing that, but it’s not because the management team isn’t approachable. For those who write that making use of the open kitchen philosophy is viewed as dissent, that’s just not true. If you have feedback for an executive, think it through so that it’s not just whining…maybe propose a solution or two. And deal in facts. If you do that, executives will listen to you. - Say thank you. We have quarterly “Q” Awards to publicly call out top performers, but even beyond that, it’s a regular thing around here to hear “thank you” at all levels of the organization. - Focus on three constituents equally…customers, shareholders and employees. OK, there are obviously times when it feels like a decision is more focused on shareholders than the other two, but more often than not, decisions are made looking at all three. Long term, if customers aren’t happy and/or employees aren’t happy, it will ultimately make the shareholders not happy, so nothing is done in a vacuum. Hurricanes and Durham Bulls tickets Annual Club Trip for top performers...I believe there were 35 or 40 names on the list from all offices who got to go. It's not just for Sales and Execs.
Cons
It’s too easy for underperformers to hang around too long while the rest of the folks carry their weight. Weak middle management in some departments. Too many are managers and not leaders. Most are not process oriented people so processes are stale and not continually improving. Acquisitions are tough, especially in the software world. And when acquired technology provides surprises, it’s a long and arduous process to work through to fix them. I think we’ve learned some lessons here, but it took several acquisitions to learn those lessons. Onboarding process needs an overhaul. It is too much of “trial-by-fire”. We have complex products that take a long time to learn and be prepared to support / implement / develop and there’s an expectation to be fully productive very quickly.
