There are a lot of cons for this company, and I did feed everything back to them prior to leaving. Everything mentioned here has been fed back to them, minus perhaps in regards to the leaving process.
* No structure, organisation or training. I was employed as a Graduate Full Stack Developer, and you'd expect a little bit of organisation and training anyway when you first join a company so you know what you're doing and what's expected of you. There was NONE of this whatsoever, it's a real mess. This left me not knowing how to do my job for a long while, and I still to this day don't know what I needed to do to pass my probation. In terms of training, as mentioned there was none, new starters are directed to the company wiki which is an absolute MESS, and very difficult to get your head around. We were also given an outdated Python book to learn from. You need up to date resources, and spend time researching into online resources for new starters to use. Some people learn better using video, and instead I was left to find things for myself and given no direction on what to actually learn.
* From my experience, some managers needed more training on how to be a manager. There were no regular check in meetings, or any guidance at all. Either do the above and make sure management know what they're doing, or employ more people that actually want to be managers. Without it, I didn't know what progress I was making, felt anxious a lot of the time, and had no idea what to learn.
* Senior management is a mess. There was NO communication at all between senior staff and the rest of the company really when I was there, so it was really difficult to know what was going on when trouble arose. The problem also is that they've hired consultants to make the company better - consultants who are only there a couple of days a week, and hadn't made a real effort to get to know what each of the teams did and how the company works. I also witnessed some permanent employees being poorly treated and almost disregarded in favour of the consultants which is appalling.
* There was NO work to do. Projects had been paused prior to me starting (because of problems arising with management in my team and a lack of a Product Owner), so we were left fixing bugs - which is fine until they very quickly dry up and everyone in the team is competing for the same work. As a newbie too, you want to get stuck in and learn, fix bugs, and work on projects, and I did very little during the 4 months I was there. I feel like I've come away learning very little and what I did learn was off my own back - because of the lack of direction and training and organisation. It's also super boring when you've got nothing to do!
* It was difficult to get any straight answers off of anyone for anything. Because of the disruption to management and lack of management, any queries couldn't be answered really.
* I feel there was a real lack of honesty. My manager left 4 weeks into me starting. They privately pulled the R&D team over and told us they were leaving, but they'd been told they weren't allowed to say anything by the senior management team so we had to keep it secret. We weren't told by when they were leaving however, and one day they went on holiday and didn't come back. I felt so much uncertainty wondering about whether or not they'd left then, and senior management didn't make an official announcement for several weeks. So for several weeks there was a lot of uncertainty as to who was in charge, what was going on etc. Then when the senior team did make an announcement they told us the manager hadn't left. WHAT THE HELL. Yet more uncertainty. It took weeks - I would even say a good month before finally they made an announcement that the manager had handed their notice in and left, but they hadn't left and are still working with the company. I know several people didn't know what the hell was going on and it made me definitely feel anxious and unsure of who to report to as line manager etc. So many things were unanswered.
* Staff aren't really listened to and a lot of false promises are made. I raised my concerns within the first month and was told that things would change. The changes never happened.
Towards the end I really dreaded going in and felt really low. That's not how a job or the company should be making anyone feel. The last thing to mention is that I experienced problems when leaving, and after the mess with my manager, I suspect that the same thing happened to them and they were bullied into staying. When I handed my notice in, they refused my notice (which I now realise isn't something that can be done legally), and basically overwhelmed me with false promises. At the time I thought that what they were offering if I stayed sounded amazing - it was only after officially refusing to stay, that I learned that the company would not have been able to provide me with the things that had been offered to me. Anyhow, the entire process left me feeling overwhelmed, stressed, and pressured because they threw everything possible at me to get me to stay, even trying to appeal to issues I had in my personal life, and I ended up getting upset and unwell with stress. Once I refused to talk about it anymore and told them my decision was final, everything followed the normal leaving process, but it was a horrible thing to have to go through, and unlike anything I have experienced before.
Upon reading the reviews before mine, I agree with all the cons they have mentioned and it is still happening there now. Until things drastically change, I would not recommend working there to anyone. It's such a shame as the actual ground staff are amazing, and the only reason I would have stayed would have been for them. But I have 100% made the correct decision in leaving. If I had read the reviews on here prior to starting, I would not have accepted the job.
