Pros
A good workplace to have your soft skills polished. With not many practices that are set in stone and documented; Any unorthodox practices towards the team that works for them should be good to go. This allows you to have your trial-and-error period in the company till you have your proper setting/cadence or till management decides their path for you. There are certifications and training provided here within the company.
Workload, timelines and flexibility. The main highlight here is that there is good work from home arrangements
Leading by example. Without a doubt, product owners, BA/SM and tech leads based in Malaysia show good examples to lead their fellow juniors to climb baby steps and understand the processes and practices within the company
Salary, benefits, KPI and recognition. Salary in the company is quite reasonable and follows the market rate
Events, gatherings and culture. This company is a multicultural workplace. It does consist of many employees from different parts of the world. Celebrations of birthdays are carried out monthly and occasionally there are social gatherings such as Game Night, Festival events, Christmas dinner and town hall. Food is always prepared at these events and daily there is a healthy option of fruits as well. Besides that, there is a dart board and a Nintendo switch to blow off some steam.
Process, tools and communication in the workplace. The tools used within the company are pretty much standard Atlassian tools. For those of you who are familiar, no issues there. To those who are new, there are many tutorial videos that can be found to help familiarize yourselves with tools from Atlassian (Jira, Confluence etc). Most of the fields in JIRA are being used by the team especially in operations
Cons
Mediocre management better teammates. No doubt the people you work with in the company are helpful and willing to offer hands if you are facing issues; However, if impediments that you are faced with needs a little bit of critical thinking and clarification, it would be better if you learn to be independent and pick up the pace yourself at times as your teammates are also not there to spoon feed you. As for the management level that you report to, (to keep it short here) just make sure you follow their way or the highway.
Workload, timelines and flexibility. The workload is decent, but it varies once promises are made between parties before consultation of the team/tech lead or Product owner. This will affect productivity and morale of the team due to tight deadlines and rush of features. Furthermore, this may result in either OT or request of additional resources from different teams to step in. My 2 cents for management and people who are in discussion with users/stakeholders before the kickoff, properly identify the business strategies, create persona(s) followed by understanding their goals then ONLY focus on the features. As much as the company has an on the shelf product, it does not bring value to the user if features are just rushed without proper understanding of the business and goals.
Leading by example. On the management side of things, there were instances of practice where a few user stories were cloned and added in the backlog with the same description but different titles. With the lack of description and acceptance criteria within the stories, it left the team in a confused state on how to proceed. As the project has some unorthodox practices such as 2 Product owners, the bare minimum one can do is to at least cover the fundamentals of creation of user stories with key factors such as requirements, scope, environment, acceptance criteria and dependencies. Furthermore, it was a rushed project with tight deadlines and the Product owner who added those user stories was MIA afterwards (annual leave). With proper planning and discussions with the team beforehand, this would have led to a more desirable outcome. As our values in the company includes TRANSPARENCY, it would be wise for management to lead by example in this matter. You wouldn’t want to be cascading these kinds of practices to future employees.
Salary, benefits, KPI and recognition. If you are an employee that has been there for quite some time (more than 2 years or so), the increment is based on KPI(s). The KPI(s) are prepared by the managers, some are spot on and some are missed. Some of the KPI(s)do not match the current job description that you signed up for but, you do have to wear a lot of hats, so be prepared for that. If you are on the good side of management and show that you are contributing to your project resulting in smooth sailing sprints then you are on your way to receive the big bucks even if you are a new hire. Recognition doesn’t mean much in the company due to management believes within a team we are commending and praising each other to increase our chances or being recognized and receiving incentive in the near future. It only matters if it comes from someone within the company with power and influence. Therefore, if you are looking for recognition, please have your work be seen and transparent by the higher-ups or by the stakeholders/users. As for benefits, you do have your usual insurance, monthly allowance and dental/optical.
Process, tools and communication in the workplace. Pay extra attention as there is 1 field you guys should take note of: the ‘Time tracking’ field. Ensure that you use this field consistently as management uses it as a tracking tool to monitor what you are doing in your team. By a certain cutoff date, if you do not log 40 hours or so (a week), they will have a chat with you so be prepared for that. If you can justify yourself or your team/project is doing healthily then you will not be the target of management. In summary, fill up your hours for transparency and keep it as practice as management themselves UNFORTUNATELY do not carry out this practice. On the topic of communication, be sure to raise any concerns or feedback you have to your SM/PO or HR. Avoid misuse of language or personal feedback on comments about management in your group chat because somehow the news may reach up there and you may be called up for a discussion among them. Furthermore, management does give out warning letters like handouts so try to adhere to the company rulebook as well as ‘their rulebook’. You will be able to pick up bits and pieces of their rulebook as you spend more time in the company.