Thoughtworks reviews

ThoughWorks is about travel. Do not join the company if you want to be based and work in a given city. Management can be fine, but if you're unlucky you'll suffer. Most managers in the company are not trained or experienced to act as managers, which means they end up causing a lot of damage. I had a great time with some managers in the NY office, but in the past one of the MDs had a management style that caused a high attrition rate, and despite the shortcomings she was kept for years. HR management is generally not great either. Unfortunately the company has a policy of moving inept managers into "social responsibility" roles, as opposed to let them go. Consultants in general are great, and make good colleagues to work with. However, the "principal" consultants are generally disconnected from technical work and seem to spend most of their time doing sales-related activities (or personal marketing). Whenever they end up coming with actual technical solutions, they generally cause a lot of damage to clients. The company is fairly inconsistent among its offices. In the USA, in general, it's not a company I'd recommend. In Europe it's ok-ish. In India and China it's about offshore work, and substantially better than other local companies. In Brazil it's mostly about left-wing politics. In Australia it seems to be a decent company.

Where do I begin? I've joined as a lateral hire (in TW lingo, this means someone that already had a career before) and spent almost a year trying to understand how TW works and what's the purpose of it all. Is it a non-profit disguised as a software consultancy? Body-shop that sucks less? Roy's little experiment? I left without any clue. First, as a consultant, even if they tell you that there is no manager, you'll be at the mercy of the staffing team, who can then send you to a client/project that can be great or just a body shop. TW has a great office in central London but don't believe the hype. If you are a consultant, you'll be spending most of your time at a client site, dealing with legacy tech, boring people, enterprise culture and usually travelling to less desirable locations across the UK. Your ability to grow and work on interesting things will depend on how good you are in networking and getting noticed (ie, politics). Best projects are kept for the most politically skilled (sorry, introverts). Second, everyone likes to blast how diverse and inclusive TW is and how everyone is able to freely have a discussion up to the CEO but this is only true if you are on the "right" side. TW has a lot of wonderful people, but it also has marxists, social justice warriors, hardcore feminists, LGBT advocates (they are the ones dictating the agenda). If you don't buy into this, you'll have a hard time there. I was more comfortable at a client side than in the London office (I felt no connection with other people there). And the idea to choose a sponsor to help you advance in your career is a joke.