Pros
Meeting nice people from all over the world, and learning about their cultures and lives can be a lot of fun. Great coworkers with varied backgrounds and across all ages. If you are interested in games, you will get to see/try new titles before the public.
Cons
The work at Keywords is project based, meaning they will call you in to work X number of days or weeks. In between projects, you will be at home without compensation. When interviewing, they may tell you to expect 2-4 weeks of downtime per year, but this is very far from the truth. There is NO guarantee that you will have work, and when they do call you in, projects tend to shift and change with no warning. This means that you might show up to work, expecting a few weeks of income, only to be told that the project has been delayed. As projects get close to deadline, aforementioned poor planning manifests itself as last minute overtime requests, often on weekends. Management is the main problem at Keywords. The top manager has often stated to me and others that his philosophy is: "I don't care if people hate me, because no one is irreplaceable." This "Leadership Style" lays the foundation for how employees are treated, creating an often toxic atmosphere of intimidation and fear. The rest of the management team is typically overwhelmed and therefore mostly disinterested in the well-being of testers (to them, the priority is making Keywords look good to the client, not the employees). Don't expect anyone from management to be on top of communication, and don't expect to be thanked for your work. Compensation is low for the work and what management expects from you in terms of availability and "loyalty". They pay people based on a combination of how rare the languages are, and how desperate they are for filling that seat. If your language is common (such as Spanish), you will be making an hourly rate in the teens. If your language is harder to find, you can squeeze them for much more. If you do apply to work there, it's important that you know your value and ask for a matching hourly rate - because you are not likely to get a raise after you start. While I was there, there were several examples of people who asked for a raise and were made to wait months for an answer (I waited 5 months). If you do get a raise, you risk being moved to the bottom of the list - meaning if there is another tester covering the same language for less, they will call them in before you when there is work to do. Not surprisingly, this sometimes creates jealousy and mistrust between testers. Outside of the pre-scheduled breaks, you are expected to quietly sit and work even if there is nothing to do. This happens regularly due to poor planning, but you are still supposed to give the appearance of working on something. Again, this is so it looks good to the client. There will be days, where all you do is sit and look at a spreadsheet and wait for an email to tick in. There is a high turnover of people, as many leave as soon as they find something elsewhere. While there, I offered numerous suggestions for how this could be improved, but was eventually told that it was not a priority, just the nature of the business. If you are looking for a career path, you can try to work your way from tester to test lead. That's as far as it goes, though. Be prepared to go above and beyond to make yourself stick out from the others who are trying to do the same thing. I did exactly that, taking initiatives and developing tools and processes for the benefit of everyone, on my own accord, some of which ended up becoming department standards. This sort of thing is expected from those who seek advancement. However, even if you do succeed in getting a promotion, know that a lead position comes with a ton more responsibility and expectation, but your compensation will stay pretty much the same as when you were testing. There is no HR available, should you have a need for that.
