Fast paced, interesting clients but with an awkward culture - Software Developer Simply Zesty Employee Review

Being owned by a larger corporation affords Zesty the ability to offer a lot of perks and features not normally associated with web agencies: On top of a fair salary there are numerous bonuses such as a comprehensive pension package, private healthcare, paid sick days and a lot more. As a company Zesty have also always been very understanding and supportive towards employee's personal needs overlapping with business hours - be it small things like having to work around a car getting serviced to larger asks such as far away funerals. Additionally, and again unlike a lot of other agencies, Zesty have proven to be very respectful of the personal time of their staff with very few unexpected out of hour calls and the like. In essence this is a company that understands, respects, and supports the fact that the people working there have a life outside that work. Finally, another plus is the ability to work from home, if desired, but having the availability of a great office space in central Belfast.

On one hand, as is the nature of larger corporations, change can be slow to materialise. On the other hand, as is the nature of web agencies, work can get a bit hectic on occasion.

As a developer, I'm constantly pushed and challenged. Challenged in terms of project complexity, encouraged to grow and improve and write better code. I feel like I'm constantly learning. All the senior devs seem to have been there for like 15-20yrs so there's always someone to ask for help. There are opportunities to attend conferences and subscriptions to some premium online learning tools provided, so continuous development is available. the parent company offers all sorts of training if you look for it. By way of project work - there's a great variety and opportunities to work on or build applications for household names, which is nice. If you do a good job on a project you get offered a better client/project next time. Those bigger and better projects for et household names do come along if you visibly put the effort in. I started on smaller brochureware stuff plus support but quickly got the opportunity to work on National platforms. Good benefits package. Pension, death in service, good sick pay coverage, etc. Remote working is supported, but if you want to go into the office - the location and views are great. And sharing an office floor with a radio station means you do occasionally share the elevator with the odd pop star :-)

It can be high pressure sometimes. It's agency work and client demands come with that. You need to have your eyes open to that up front and plan ahead. Agency life doesn't always suit some people but I've been in a few agencies now and it's basically the same type of agency life whether dev, marketing, advertising, etc - agency brings pressure and deadlines. The flip side of that is the variety of work - never the same old thing day after day. So pick what suits you personally - variety or slower pace. Since this agency has been around for a long time there is a lot of legacy code to support. Support is no ones favourite but it's a good way to learn as well. You see different techniques and learn a lot about refactoring.