Agadia - Information Security Manager Agadia Employee Review

Nice people and healthy environment

None I can think of

If you're able to protect yourself from getting squeezed, you can get some OK experience, but don't plan to stay long.

The aging leadership here has developed a toxic attitude bordering on a royalty complex. There's a shameless arrogance that screams "I'm one of the originals so I'm privileged", with all of the favoritism and brown nosing to the you would imagine. If you're not in the "in" group here, you have no agency and certainly no respect. Only directors and above are allowed to make any real decisions. These are NOT the kind of leaders that will give you the space to take actual ownership over what you do. They are obsessed with control and want to micromanage you until everything is done THEIR way. They have this attitude like they're hot shots that were born to lead, but all their experience is getting outdated very fast, and anything new or modern feels like a threat to the old order where they feel safe. There is no courage to empower new ideas. Control is more important. What does this lead to? Most of the processes and tools they are still using are painfully out of date to the point where you can almost consider a lot of the experience a throw away. The whole engineering process is designed to be micro-managed to such an excessive level of detail, everyone is suffocating. It's all hyper-reactive to whatever random things clients request with no broader strategy pacing things and tying it all together. Clients are demanding whatever they want, whenever they want and everyone just has to scramble to figure out how to make it happen. That's what they mean by "fast-paced". This also means that product has been pushed to the sidelines with barely any say in what goes on. The whole thing is a IT-centric service-based ticketing machine instead of an organization that builds tech products. This is also one of those companies that would LOVE to outsource every role if they could, leeching as much money offshore to serve the home country. The roles they are forced to have onsite are worked as hard as possible almost out of spite. Onsite roles are limited to the people they need to communicate with clients (who obviously have the cushier experience), and the tech roles who are either the ones tasked with micromanaging offshore resources day and night, or the ones with visas they got a deal on. The office has that distinct corporate sweatshop vibe that you can never get used to. And speaking of offices, a particularly disgusting aspect is that this is also one of those wrong-side-of-history companies that couldn't wait to rush everyone back to the office as soon as COVID started slowing down. BUT not everyone. If it applied to everyone equally, that would be one thing. But for some reason, the RTO policy only applied to the engineering side of the organization, and not to the business side. Account Management, Analysts, Sales, etc. ALL remote with one or two exceptions. ALL able to live wherever they want. Engineering was cynically targeted by this policy because the leadership on that side couldn't stomach the perceived loss of control. It's all too common these days. Insecure middle management delaying the inevitable so they can feel that old school power a little bit longer before they retire. They should be especially ashamed of this given their office is smack dab in the middle of northern New Jersey which is notoriously unaffordable. But leadership making 250k+ wouldn't care about that, of course. They wouldn't care if you have to live in a box, or have to commute 1.5 hours, as long as the lower castes are sweating in their cubicles where they belong, where middle management can have them under their thumb. At the end of the day, like every company, the organization and the roles that make it up are designed to maximize the amount of money that stays at the top at the expense of everyone else. But, seeing it up close here in particular, the shameless inequality, obsession with control, and the arbitrary privilege assigned to certain people is sickening, so I felt like I should take some time to say something to anyone who is thinking about working here. Especially in tech. Even for those of you still there, I hope you haven't accepted this as normal, because it's not. You can do better. I did. So, unless you're being hired directly into that privileged top 20%, or you you're a natural "daddy's pet" type, you will not find any comfort here, and you're certainly not moving up in any way unless you bend the knee and give them 10+ years of nights and weekends. The hierarchy's locked in and the good spots are reserved for the sycophants desperate to hold onto their status. If this is the only opportunity you can find right now, just make sure you start planning your exit soon after starting and don't waste too much time here.