Short-sighted leadership and neglect of satellite offices
Pros
-Scheduled work from home days -Free coffee/pop -Casual dress code
Cons
Management are clueless (and are mostly all new to the company due to the hilariously high turnover rate) and don't listen to what people with experience have to say. Whenever SciQuest acquires new technology, it is crammed thoughtlessly into processes that were designed for an entirely different product. Executive decisions are made on the ill-founded assumption that what works for the flagship product should also work for any and all acquired technology. Experienced employees point out this fallacy, are ignored and belittled, and left to watch the train-wreck (and then take their share of the blame for not delivering what they already knew was doomed from the start). The work environment can be stressful. The technology that the Edmonton office is responsible for has come a long way, but is still very unstable. Rather than taking a release to stabilize the product we already have, the Development department is pushed to keep pumping out new features and do stabilization work concurrently-- so instead we end up with half-baked features and barely-improved stability. In any event, the excruciatingly high amount of turnover usually prevents any meaningful work from getting done. Executive team cannot seem to grasp the fact that our code base is incredibly complex, and a developer hired off the street is not going to be able to contribute meaningfully for at least a few months, which makes holding on to the senior resources we DO have extremely important. They are utterly and unequivocally failing at this, as our top guys can go just about anywhere else for way less stress and way more money. New hires are basically thrown to the wolves-- many have to wait MONTHS before they receive any kind of application training, but are still expected to perform. In the rare event that important goals or milestones are met, there is almost no recognition of them-- I'm personally still waiting to hear a "thank you" or a "good job". Distrust and disillusionment run high in the Edmonton office, where the beloved HR staff were immediately fired upon the acquisition and never replaced. All in all, it's just a demoralizing, depressing place for motivated people to work. If you're just looking to collect a paycheck, it's not so bad. But it's a terrible place to work if you care about your work and want to feel successful.
