Software engineers, look elsewhere
Pros
Lots of good people; very good facilities
Cons
Developers at allpay struggle under a management structure that does not appear to understand software, or how good software gets created, or how important well-engineered software is to a "fintech" company. Experience and system knowledge are heavily undervalued. Developers are just resources to be picked up and dropped. Staff turnover is high (the highest I've ever seen), and knowledge of vital systems is worryingly low. The company likes to claim it is an agile development house, but it isn't. There are no scrum masters, and teams have no autonomy to self-organize or pursue best-practice. Management can't bring themselves to trust staff who know what they're talking about. They prefer to micromanage everything. The project planning process is glacially slow and frustrating. Daft decisions are imposed upon teams, even when they clearly harm the software creation effort. Development proceeds at a frustratingly slow pace. If you like to devise creative, smart solutions to solve problems, and expect the business to support you in your efforts, then look elsewhere. The company shows you no appreciation if you make company-saving changes to key systems. Developers are heavily outnumbered by project managers and business analysts and layers of line-management having meetings about meetings. This is a company that thought nothing about antagonizing its IT department by forcing its members to reapply for their own jobs a while back. A cack-handed attempt to get rid of a few individuals whose faces didn't fit. Staff with years of vital experience were judged on the basis of brief interviews and ridiculous technical tests. They were put through months of uncertainty and stress as the process lumbered on, and departmental morale died. Technically legal, perhaps, but shoddy and disrespectful. A great company would never behave in such a way, and a good one would have realised the hole they were in and stopped digging. Allpay carried on digging on when the damage being done was obvious. No apologies, no humility. Lots of good people walked away as a result, and a well-functioning, dedicated department was turned into a wasteland of low morale. Management then appeared to be bemused about why people were unhappy; they are incapable of properly listening to their staff, or treating them like grown-ups. Perhaps things will slowly recover, but I wouldn't put it past them doing the same thing again at some point, and who needs to go through that? Also, you may have seen reviews from current allpay employees saying how great the company is. Yeah. I guess you have to admire the effort.
