CA Short Reviews

I have seen many things in IT. I have seen companies with no direction, companies with no methodology, companies with no business plan. This is a company with all of those, plus so much less. This is a software company that brags about having a warehouse, but their 15-year-old flagship software product is barely able to sustain their current customer base. The warehouse, barely used, is spotless, while the core database has 800 tables, 500 million rows, and not a single foreign key constraint (many tables have no primary keys, either). Be prepared to dodge steamrollers and tow motors on your way to the bathroom, though. This is a software company whose methodology is not even waterfall, yet claims that they have "gone agile" because they have a daily meeting that often lasts hours and solves no problems. They spent a lot of money on an in-house training program, and a really good one, but they ignored all of its teachings, because why learn how to adjust to a better system when developers can just work 70 hours per week? This is a technology company who has not heard of ORM, separation of concerns, separate development environments, or continuous integration. They have heard of OSU, though. Developing-in-production is supposed to be an in-joke, not Plan-A! This is a technology company run by leadership who have no understanding of technology, and therefore hire whatever snake-oil "experts" present themselves, spouting miracle cures for all woes. They sat through a 2-day agile training, but still thinks that the best way to advance their ancient, crumbling software is to force impossible requirements down developers' throats 2 weeks before a go-live. To add insult to injury, the go-live date was set, arbitrarily, 3 months in advance and 2 months before there were any features in the spec at all! This is a company that will force you to attend a 3-hour "rah-rah" meeting in an old, dusty warehouse, and watch senior management dress up and lip-sync (and force IT to cross-dress, too!). They may fire you immediately after this enforced recreation, as has happened in the past. This is a company that has "Feel-Good Fridays", but they become Fire-Days instead. They fire EVERYONE by email, without warning or reason. "Effective immediately, <XYZ> is no longer with the company" emails will be a regular occurrence to you, until your former coworkers receive one about you. My personal favorite: the Fire-day when the person who previously sent the firing emails was fired, in the same email as two other employees who had been at the company for far longer that I. This is a technology company where work-life balance is non-existent. You WILL work weekends, every week. You WILL work nights, also every week. In 7 months, I worked 40 hours only once, and I have the time sheets to prove it. Expect to cancel those weekend plans; The plan seems to be x+15, where x = 60. You WILL NOT have support from directors, architects, and team leads. They WILL scapegoat you as the pressure is applied from their clueless masters. You WILL NOT have remote days, even though you did for ages. Much like remote days, every promise WILL be rescinded. CSRs WILL promise unrealistic features to customers. The same CSRs WILL NOT speak with development before making these promises. You WILL NOT be paid according to your experience. These people act like Shelby isn't 15 miles from Charlotte, so they can offer Bemidji, MN pay rates, compared to what everyone else in the Charlotte metro offers at the same skill level. You WILL NOT be listened to about technology issues or recommendations. The architects do not believe in any technology that was invented after the Fugees were hot. ORM - nope. Continuous Integration? - nuh-uh. SEPARATE DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENTS? nah They DO love vacations, though, so be prepared to work 30-hour weekends while the folks in charge take a week off for Flag Day. I could go on for ages, but that is not the point. If you are a tech person, and you are reading this: RUN. Do not walk. Or accept two things: 1. You will be back here in 3-9 months to post your own warning sign to others. 2. You cannot say that you weren't warned. If you get on the Short bus, you will regret it. It is not a matter of IF, it is simply a matter of TIME. Good luck.