Pros
Manchester office - Nice view of city Some good talent and helpful individuals Good client base, which is impressive on paper Strong tech stack Decent benefits and pension
Cons
Started working in the Manchester office before the Dept merger. There was a strong talent pool of individuals who left one by one due to bad mis-management and increasing corporate culture. This is not the type of company where talent gets you far, you are siloed into a team and expected to stay at the same level, unless you make a fuss or a move to leave. Salary is also exceptionally low, with some lower level members of staff earning more than developers. There is no set pay scale, it seemed to be purely based on if your face fit, you would gain a pain rise. In the 5 years I worked there, I only gained 2 mediocre pay rises. Projects sometimes can be unorganised chaos, with wildly unrealistic time scales and estimates. Quite often there is no support for developers finding themselves in this situation and they are simply forced to work late/absorb the stress and blame for bad project management decisions. Whilst there are some caring individuals who try to help develop talent, the general attitude of the company is 'sink or swim'. Very little support is handed your way if you're struggling. A lot of internal politics and favouritism was common place. This allowed various members of staff to abuse the flexitime patterns and work from home. Whilst junior staff or those on the support team where never granted such privileges.