Heliolytics Reviews

Management (both exec & Team specific) expects every employee to have the diverse and seasoned skill set of a project manager, while also openly acknowledging that this is an entry level position with presumed high turnover. As a data analyst you are both somehow micromanaged down to every minute of your day and also have little to no accountability for timelines and quality of work. Tasks above your role will be given to you with the incentive of looking good at your next annual review. You’re expected to be a self-starter willing to take on non-core tasks with little to no guidance, and success in this role (promotions, higher bonuses, raises) is about looking valuable rather than being valuable. Sloppy work is accepted (in some ways a pro, on a personal level if you’re just looking to coast on by), but at the hindrance of the team as a whole. Specifically within the Analysis Team there are concerns from analysts about the management team. Management has no previous people lead experience and as such often fail to react appropriately and in a timely manner to a variety of situations. Your mental well-being is less important than moving past a situation without any uncomfortable encounters. This can be especially difficult since the team is small, you build a relationship with your manager and then you can be left feeling unsupported when you need it most. This is probably the biggest negative regarding personnel, structure, and the organization as a whole: the CTO. Timelines and deadlines do not exist to them. The CTO is very into being the boss but not very into the actual management aspect of this kind of role. He has been continuously condescending towards employees and has failed to acknowledge his shortcomings in this role, even after they are brought to his attention. He has hoarded menial tasks (literally running a jupyter notebook) and made himself the linchpin and bottleneck of providing clients their reports. Processes in place for all employees (where to document things, how to hand tasks off, etc.) do not exist for the CTO and if you need him to do something due Friday, you’d better ask Wednesday and spoon feed all the information to him as though he cannot think critically. Because he is a part-owner of Heliolytics, questioning him is nearly impossible. From the perspective of an analyst, it seems as though the Business Development team will make any promise to any client. Project scheduling shuffles on a daily basis with “priority” work or “strategic clients” springing up regularly. It’s incredibly detrimental to team morale to be constantly shuffling. These things happen at any business in a consulting world, but it’s a worrying business model to constantly be in this state of flux. Multiple times, myself or coworkers have encountered racism, sexism, and other inappropriate office behaviour. From all levels of management there is an infuriating willingness to sweep things under the rug in an attempt to move past inappropriate remarks or actions. The weight of knowing there are problematic people that you have to work with is fully on you and your conscience, while hollow apologies are deemed enough in order to move on.

Other reviews have summarized a lot of my feelings and concerns. I have an additional point to help add context.. The company advertises to Clients that they have this novel AI platform that completes their work. They don't. They have a team of 'Analysts' who complete point-and-click data entry all day, every day. The work is just tedious. Everything that you do is also checked by a Senior 'Analyst', so every piece of work feels like a test where the only feedback you can expect is negative feedback regarding things you've missed. Accuracy metrics (e.g., percentage errors you've made) are used as a primary factor for growth discussions. The Company also suppresses the fact that 'Analysts' complete this work (to reiterate: they claim it's AI-driven). I once glanced at a client-facing RFP that outlined company structure and notable people in the organization. I had been working hard for more than a year and I was excited to see how my role was advertised. I was stubbornly thinking that I had been growing towards a promotion, and my manager had been dangling a carrot for me to pursue ('you're doing well!', 'you're on the right track!', etc.). This was my first job out of school and I thought I had to 'put my time in' or something like that. I was honestly surprised to see that new developer interns who had only been working there for a week or two were listed by name and had like a blurb, but there was no mention for the whole 'Analyst' Team (~15 people) other than a branch on the company structure tree that noted 'Additional Help' or something vague like that. That was a lightbulb moment when I thought: "Oh, clients don't even know my role exists. The Company doesn't take pride or ownership of my position. We're like the dirty little secret." In contrast, they obviously wanted to highlight their dev team (again, AI). Anyways, that contextualized a lot of the company structure and shined a light on behaviours I had been ignoring until then. The 'Analyst' Team was the backbone of the company that actually completed the work, but was nevertheless at the bottom of the hierarchy. Underpaid, undervalued, and overworked. Morale was extremely low. I'm grateful that I had that epiphany because it motivated me to look for fulfilling work elsewhere. I also find it sus that many positive reviews were posted recently that carry the same structure or mention the same thing (e.g., 'flat management structure', 'rapidly growing', 'exciting opportunity', and other shallow buzzwords). If you've found this page because you are applying for a role or you were offered a role, please beware.