Pros
- Friendly coworkers who are eager to help with anything that comes up. - Comprehensive training program for the technologies used at AO. - Decently maintained resources on confluence and slack regarding things like company procedures, common problems, and team directories. - Frequent office events, free baseball tickets, etc.
Cons
- Low pay: This is the big one. The salary is uncompetetive with other software development jobs. AO touts its benefits and meager raises but these do not compensate for the low salary in face of inflation. Working almost anywhere else as a developer will give you a bigger pay bump than any of that, while keeping similar or better benefits. - Micromanagement: You will be scolded by management for leaving ten minutes early even if your work is complete. Management can also take an adversarial tone which does not foster a healthy work environment. WFH was dangled company-wide as a privilege to be lost in a way I have not seen while working at larger tech companies. Interns and new hires had to earn their WFH. The relaxed dress code was nice but this was eventually done away with. Hope you like slacks and khakis. - High turnover: People come and go, teams are broken and downsized, and knowledge transfer can be difficult to maintain. There is always a fresh MSU grad to replace you. - Technology: nothing new or exciting, mostly Java servlets and COBOL. - Training: while very thorough some of the tech training is bloated with computer science 101 information you should already know as basic qualifications for the job. Branch and role specific training could be better. - Not much new development happening so the day-to-day consists of IT tasks. Working evenings and weekends is normal and expected. - Big push for diversity and inclusion training even though the office is far from diverse.
