Pros
Work/life Balance: Unlimited paid time off and telecommuting options based on an honor system/agreement made between each manager and employee. Flexibility with creating start/end time of your work schedule, within reason (i.e. work during peak business hours, be at mandatory client meetings, etc.). The overseas developers and testers in conjunction with the night shift help desk staff relieve the other project management and technical employees from having to pull all-nighters for urgent deliverables, putting out fires, helping overseas clinical trial sites with issues, etc. Managers across the project management (“ops”) and technical departments work together to create a system for tracking new/in progress work, and allocating time and employee resources to it so as not to overextend employees nor over-promise to clients. Culture: The majority of employees are extremely friendly and supportive of one another. They work as a cross-functional team leveraging each other's strengths, knowledge and experience to solve problems and achieve objectives. When things come down to crunch time, you can rely on the aid and support of your counterparts. The managers/directors who I reported to were each genuine, kind, supportive people who had my back in front of clients, other colleagues and leadership. It is frequent and typical for a good sized group of employees from many different departments to go out and sit down at a restaurant together for lunch, sometimes including the company owner, and no one is expected to stand on ceremony or watch the clock to be back at the office by a certain time. The company holds BBQ parties in the summer outside the office during work hours and they are extremely fun (and delicious). The company also holds pot lucks (for holidays and such), and permits employees to bring and partake of alcohol. Compensation & Benefits: As mentioned previously, the company offers unlimited paid time off as long as the employee and manager collaborate and agree upon any requests for time off. A standard/borderline-to-competitive salary was offered to me. There was a 401(k) plan as well as good healthcare benefits. No tuition reimbursement.
Cons
Work/Life Balance: The workload demands were much too high in comparison to the time and employee resources available. Therefore, many employees from many different teams and departments were seen working late hours from home and even on weekends. Culture: YPrime is a small "family business" that began without a real strategic business management plan, mission, vision, and short or long term objectives. YPrime came to fruition because of the spark of an idea for a clinical trial software product. Then, as more and more clinical trial sponsors and CROs liked what they saw and began asking for new things, the powers that be would merely say "yes" and just throw it in the laps of the project management, software development and testing teams to figure it out and make it happen. It was as if every software system built for a new clinical trial protocol was an entirely new and different system from the standard system that the company originally created. To give a simple analogy: If YPrime only had the materials, knowledge and man power to offer one simple recipe of cherry pie to its clients, yet one client suddenly asked if YPrime could bake and decorate an elaborate 9-tiered wedding cake in one hour and twenty-five minutes, YPrime would say "yes" and make their employees figure it out. This “business strategy” for "staying innovative and competitive" was very taxing on the employees who had to pull off these new endeavors. Compensation & Benefits: I was not there long enough to see a bonus or merit increase period go by, but when I first came to the company, my colleagues told me not to hold my breath for those things. Career Opportunities: There didn't appear to be much room yet to spread your wings and fly from promotion to promotion or from department to department within the company, merely because the company is still young and so small. Other: HR does not have a training team to conduct a useful and beneficial new hire training program. I am not speaking of a new hire orientation. I refer more so to generalized training regarding the skills, knowledge and expertise required to perform work at that specific company, with its specific products and services, in its specific industry (training required regardless of one's specific job position). There are also no well established training programs for specific departments or job positions, aside from reading and electronically signing off on mandatory company SOPs and policies via the document management system. The quantity and quality of job specific training provided to new employees varied dependent upon what department they worked in, and how their manager handled new employee training on his/her team. It also depended on whether or not those with senior roles on the team had the time to provide on-the-job training, and give regular feedback and support to the new employees. I witnessed several well-educated, experienced, talented and eager new employees who were left to sit idly at their desks for months (upwards of six months if not more if I recall correctly) without receiving the training necessary to perform even an iota of their job duties. Their managers and senior team members were too overwhelmed with workload to provide on-the-job training, or even schedule periodic training meetings with them. That is ironic too, since their workload would have decreased if they would have just trained those new employees so they could then help with said workload. Instead, the new employees often sat at their desks and did nothing, read a few emails that they were carbon copied on throughout the day, asked neighboring colleagues if they needed help with anything, and did occasional assigned busy-work such as creating or proofreading documents. Apologies and excuses were made regularly by the new employees' managers and senior team members, and they stated that things are just so busy and they will have time to train them soon. Let it be said that these new employees did not take advantage of the situation either. I know many people who would love to get a job where they are paid to sit and stare at the wall for 8 hours per day for 6+ months. No, these employees wanted to work, they asked for work assignments daily and they regularly requested the training necessary to complete their work. It was a shame. An even greater shame was when I watched some of these new employees get set up for failure (as if they weren't already, that is). For example, a senior team member would go on a one or two week vacation or a leave of absence. All of the other team members were so inundated with work, therefore the only back-up person for the absent employee was one of the recently hired and untrained employees. Everything was left in that untrained employee's hands, with their managers' making encouraging promises that they'd help them through things every day until the absent employee returned to the office. Then, their managers would be in meetings all day every day, or too busy to assist them. Other team members and even employees from other departments would do all they could to help these struggling newer staff members left in these situations, but again they too were extremely overwhelmed with work which limited their abilities to do as much as they wished they could in order to help. As a result, I watched this create a domino affect where the client (sponsors and/or CROs), trial sites, depot vendors, and other employees in many other departments were negatively impacted by just one missing/weak link (that was no fault of their own). Some negative consequences were mere inconveniences, while some were highly escalated with very angry clients, deviations and corrective action/preventative action plans.
