Pros
1. Freshers can get good learning experience(if willing to devote a bulk of their time to the company). 2. Compensation is on par or better than other companies in the area(read on to find is it's worth losing your peace of mind over).
Cons
Here are the negatives of the company with numbered points for lucidity. 1. LEADERSHIP - First and foremost, senior management is unfit for running a corner shop let alone a medium level software enterprise. They don't know how to manage the projects and the resources. Managing employees doesn't mean watching their every move and cracking your whip at every chance you get. I've seen many talented people burn-out and leave the company because of the soul sucking style of smartdata's management. The management are bunch of 'Yes men' who will go to great lengths to please the CEO and apparently that's exactly the way the CEO likes it. From Urban Dictionary :- "Yes men often ruin the productivity or usefulness in the department they work in, as they are unwilling to provide any form of original idea, opinion or more importantly criticism to their boss and thus contribute to disconnect between managers and workers." Ironically, the HR department refers to the CEO as 'The Great Leader'. which seems apt as I find the workings of this company similar to North Korean dictatorship. 2. BILLING - Most of projects are from upwork which means use of time-tracker. To log 9 hours in the tracker a developer has to work for at least 10 hours or sometimes even more. 3. HR POLICIES - They implement policies in a haphazard way. Recently, they changed the notice period to 2 months from 45 days for new as well existing employees (possibly because of the rate of attrition). I am not even sure they can do this legally but if you refuse, they will fire you. 4. FIRING - They will fire you anytime without batting an eyelid. 5. NO FEEDBACK SYSTEM - They say they listen to the employee's grievances but as I've mentioned earlier, things happen the way 'The Great Leader' decides and not through the mandate of the masses. 6. PROJECT QUALITY - Since majority of the projects are from upwork, you can guess the quality of work they get. 7. RIGGING SOCIAL MEDIA - They ask people to log into Facebook and post positive reviews. Most of the five star reviews on glassdoor are fake which have been written by the HR themselves(no cons? Common guys, nothing is perfect, even working for Microsoft has its cons). What do you expect from a company which instead of working on the feedback tries to whitewash their image(but still fail miserably). Think about it, what would be the rating of the company if there were no rigged reviews on glassdoor? I've met a lot of hardworking, honest and talented people at smartdata but most of them have since left or will leave soon because of the toxic work culture and ignorant leadership. The management needs a massive overhaul if they want to rub their shoulders with the biggies in the software world.
