Pros
If you are a 22 year old developer, right out of college, with little to no experience and looking to get into Drupal this job is perfect for you. You will be marketed as an expert, thrown into the deep end, and gain lots of experience by being overworked, underpaid, and talked down to. The owner will make you feel special. He'll buy you some drinks at a bar on Fridays, pay for your travel to a Drupal camp. He'll come off as a real "pal" and think that you aren't smart enough to see through his BS. Then he'll order his team to grind you into the ground until your sole hates the career you worked so hard in school for. You will work the job for 9-12 months, then quit and find a job with a real company. It's not what you learned at Promet that makes you better than when you started, its what you learned not to do that provides your 23 year old eager mind with new skills and marketability.
Cons
- Zero strategy or mission. The owner will lay down a strategy one day and the next day will undermine it in order to make a few bucks. Long term strategy is undermined by short term gains that in the end cost the company more. - Lying, deception and deceit is tolerated and is the main strategy utilized by the owner. This is true for both internal communication and management of employees as well as the treatment of sales to its clients. - Harassment & unprofessional activity is standard. The owner is the number one culprit in unprofessional language, treatment, and attitude in the workplace. Swearing, belittling, and harassment are standard. Those who challenge his ideas or intimidate him are met with public and unprofessional criticism, mockery, and backtalk to other employees. - Empowerment is non-existent. It doesn't matter what your skill, role, or job title is. You will not have any control of its fate. Managers are hesitant to empower their teams, Sr. management the same with theirs, and it all stems from an owner that cannot give up any control over projects or organizational decisions. - Culture is held together through "freebees". There is no office culture. In fact there are only about 5 people in the Chicago office. A few elsewhere in the US and then 10 folks in the Philippines. This lack of any enjoyable office life is made up for with happy hour drinks and free trips (1 or 2) per year. Everyone seeks to work remotely if possible to avoid being near the owner. - A 90% outsourced company masked as a local shop. Promet is made up of about 30 people. 5 or so in the US office that are management, owner, marketing, sales, and office management. There are 1-3 developers (maybe at a time) elsewhere in the US. The rest of the team is all located offshore. This is not transparent to clients. It also makes architecture of projects extremely difficult. Lastly, it hangs project management out to dry as they have serious communication issues with offshore. Also, if you are one of the 1-2 Solutions Architects at any given time, you have about 10 projects that require your time. - Zero technical leadership. As mentioned above, there are 1-2 architects at any given time. With many more project than that, you are really hung out to dry as an architect. You can't advance your skills, stay in tune with trends, or really enjoy doing your work. You are pulled in 30 different directions. This position has extremely high turnover. Most don't stay to even a year.
