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      JSI Telecom

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      JSI Telecom Reviews

      3.8

      65% would recommend to a friend

      (103 total reviews)

      Mhairi Skinner

      86% approve of CEO

      54% positive business outlook

      Ratings by category

      4.1

      Work/Life balance

      3.9

      Diversity and inclusion

      3.6

      Culture and values

      3.6

      Compensation and benefits

      3.4

      Career opportunities

      3.3

      Senior management

      JSI Telecom has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 103 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The JSI Telecom employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      103 reviews
      2.0
      25 Jan 2016

      Going through difficult changes

      Senior software developer
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      First off, don't believe half of these fluffy happy ratings. Management has specifically asked employees to post positive reviews on Glassdoor. I'm sure a number of these 5 star reviews were planted. I'm tired of seeing new employees instantly let down by the realities of working here. Also don't believe the interview process where they tell there are all kind of unique exciting challenges etc etc. As a software developer you will be mainly working on bugs and a predefined story backlog. You won't be designing or creating anything unique and exciting. - There are some really great talented people at JSI. - The time in Lieu policy is great. - RRSP contribution matching. - Relatively competitive salary for the Ottawa area. - You will rarely be asked to work over time. - There is job security, almost to a fault. Many JSI employees are 'lifers' and could never re-enter the job market at this point.

      Cons

      - Management has been asleep at the wheel for years now. - There is not a culture of quality, and it is reflected in the work. - Their version of agile leaves a lot to be desired. - Expect MONTHS of tie off sprints to beat the code into a somewhat stable state so it can be pushed out the door. - Next to zero formal design of software to be written. - Serious issues in the code base are ignored in favour of adding new bells and whistles. - Zero career growth if you're not interested in management. It's basically impossibly to care about what you're working on. Just punch the clock, and collect your paycheque. That's how most JSI employees deal with it.

      avatar
      JSI Telecom Response
      10y
      Thank you for your feedback. JSI needs to continuously strive to do better, so I encourage all JSI employees to talk to their team, their manager and to me about how we can improve what we do. We also tell all JSI employees that if they love JSI they should pass that message on to the world and bring us their friend's resumes -- for example, we had a dozen referrals in the last month. You are absolutely right that we spend too much time fixing defects, and I believe improving this will make us more effective. The earlier we can catch defects, the more efficient our development process. Accordingly we are modifying our internal tools so that stories are developed and tested in a story branch with full automated testing before that check-in progresses to the trunk. And, we recently added code stewardship logic to ensure that a motivated expert will be involved in each code review. As you note, we do support senior developers who want to move to management positions, and we also have opportunities to become architects and product owners. However, if you want to remain in software development but are not feeling challenged in your current team I am also very happy to make a spot for you working in one of our many other technologies/areas. Whether it is big data, web applications, mobile development or analytics, I am confident we can provide a new challenge!. - Director, Software Engineering
      1.0
      13 Oct 2016

      Toxic Culture will make you wish for a do-over

      Previously lied to employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      - The technology developed there is very cool and interesting to work with - Leaving there was the highlight of my time with this organization

      Cons

      - Toxic culture - Everything is closed door - Management picks their favorites and there's no movement unless you're one of them - Lots of lies fed to prospective employees to get them to leave their current employer only to let them go before the predetermined milestone dates - high employee turnover - If there wasnt why do I continually get notifications about the same positions there? - BIG promises of BIG compensation - Keep your expectations low low low. Chances are, you won't be there to enjoy any of it. - Cliquey departments

      avatar
      JSI Telecom Response
      9y
      I am very disappointed that your time at JSI was so terrible. If you are open to it, please reach out to me at rmack@jsitelecom.com as I would love to learn from what you experienced. If this helps, we did recently survey our employees. On the summary question: “I would recommend my manager to other employees”, 90 strongly agreed, 45 agreed, 6 were neutral, 3 disagreed and 2 strongly disagreed. I think those results are fairly good, but that still leaves 5 people at JSI who are not happy with their manager. Hopefully we can find ways to improve work for them; perhaps through manager coaching or maybe even with something as simple as a rotation onto a different team. To your point about employee turnover, over the last twelve months 4% of the people in Engineering resigned. Again, while I am generally happy with a 96% retention rate, we need to learn from everyone who leaves so that we can continuously improve. We have been doing a lot of hiring recently in order to grow, so that is probably why you have been seeing open positions for JSI. Thank you for your feedback. Sincerely, Randy Mack VP, Engineering
      3.0
      26 Aug 2014

      Smart peers, challenging domain but management seems lost.

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Smart people, challenging problems. TIL is paid for overtime work (rare in IT).

      Cons

      Engineering management seem lost over the past few years, recent changes in management has produced an environment where work life balance isn't there. The company is in dire need of a fresh set of individuals in upper management. Sales have dropped, no clear direction to bring the company back to where it was.

      Viewing 1 - 3 of 103 Reviews
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      ReviewsJSI Telecom reviews

      Glassdoor has 118 JSI Telecom reviews submitted anonymously by JSI Telecom employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if JSI Telecom is right for you.