CSC Reviews

Let me preface by saying most of the new-ish employees are great. The bigger issues fall within how veteran managament runs things. Before starting my list of cons I really, really, really want to emphasis this: If you are interviewing for the job, get the names of the three plus managers that you are speaking with and write them down. With the names of those three plus managers, I highly suggest calling up other recruiters and: 1) Ask them about Corptax 2) Ask them about the names that you just wrote down. These recruiters will likely: 1) Tell you about the managers you just wrote down and corroborate this review (I've spoken to multiple recruiters when I left, and they mentioned my manager by name, without me sayihng it). 2) Find you a better job somewhere else You will have to work with these managers regularly. Especially during 2a and 2d (described later) which are very uncomfortable processes that you won't have to endure at almost any other company. Now, the list of cons: 1) Corptax does not follow agile practices. It is 100% waterfall. 2) For the design review (which are done before every new assignment you begin). Your input is nearly irrelevant . Here are the basic design review steps: 2a) You, about 4 managers, the CTO, and 3-5 others (these people are much more tolerable) will ask you how you plan on solving a code related task. 2b) You'll be optimistic that this should be in and out in 30 minutes every time. This will end up being 1-4 hours of them telling you why your implementation is wrong, and will tell you what you should really do. 2c) They will want you to copy-paste functionality from another part of site that you weren't aware of because the site is huge. 2d) They will make you write in implementation that basically follows the above implementation line by line. (I've spoken to a managerial candidate that denied Corptax's job offer after being told this was the company policy) 3) Every time you check-in code, you'll first do a code review (which is fine), but they will reject a code review because of 2a and 2d. They are not interested in your coding style. They want you to follow what already exists. 4) The company runs off of one main build that 50+ people are checking-in and out. If you break the build, your instinct to run and hide, because management will be looking for you. Instead, you better fix it quickly. 5) Unit testing practices are very poor. Happy path is mostly being done. Sure, basic MVC functionality doesn't need testing, but it's bad here. The following statement is something to note, but isn't necessarily a con: TDD is not implemented Not necessarily a list of cons, but things to know that are concerning depending on what you want to do as a developer: 6)Corptax does not write stored procedures. If you wanted some SQL experience, or to work with DB, you are out of luck. There is a policy of auto-generated code to work with the DB. This policy is attached to 2A and 2D above. 7) Corptax's front end JS is a disaster (if you want to make it better, maybe that's good though). Typescript is being implemented recently, but honestly, it would be better to build out a React or Angular framework. For how much management wants to use the latest and greatest technology, I'd really expect them to build out a solution that uses one of those two. Pure JS and cshtml is old fashioned. 8) The Deerfield/Buffalo Grove office is known for being a truly terrible, soul sucking place. Management has joked that they only expect to hear the noise of typing at that office, but that sentiment is very real. 9) Speaking to the CTO over the phone is one of the worst experiences you can will endure during your job (also related to 2a above), but in person he's pleasant. Unfortunately, he is 100% remote. So unless he's visiting an office, all communication is via telephone. 10) All releases are late. Nothing is on time, and if management isn't aware of how off their release cycles are, then they're truly fools. Still many managers act like the "deadline" is serious and treat it that way. 11) Many of the positive reviews come from workers that are on Visas and are trapped because of the nature of Visas.

There is no job training. Managers are called "Team Leaders," but do not actually lead by example. Only a handful of CSC's teams are regarded as valuable; if you're not on that team, your opinion does not matter. The company spent millions of dollars on a rebranding effort hoping to change the way the world views CSC; however, our unsatisfactory and overpriced customer service has not improved at all. They built a shiny new headquarters with the intention of "bringing the CSC employees together," but only a fraction of the local employees were invited to work at (or even take a tour of) the new building. Computer technology is constantly breaking and needing emergency repairs during business hours. Outdated technology, unapproachable senior management, poor 401K matching, so many new rules that are never actually shared with the employees but we are expected to know them, company wastes money, poor planning (building a new headquarters to hold 750 employees but building a parking garage for only 640 vehicles). The company regularly asks for its employees' feedback, but this feedback is never acknowledged. They invite you to contact certain people directly with specific questions, but they will never respond to your inquiries. The same thing happens to the customers. We do not warn our customers about the high cost of our service; we always surprise them afterwards with an astronomically large bill that the customers almost always dispute.