Great company - Software Engineer SGP Consulting (UK) Employee Review

If you like diet coke, there is usually a steady supply of cans available. About the only consistant thing in the whole office.

A highly toxic workplace, where the only staff who last more than half a year have formed their own little circles and if you don't fit in with their political nonsense you'll be outcasted pretty quickly. There is a complete and utter lack of management, highlighted by the fact that several top tier positions have been a revolving door of firings and staff quitting abruptly. The newer management system put into place still doesn't work. There's a thin attempt at running something close to a properly run business, but management seem to be able to lose track of everything. Expect to be repeatedly asked questions about tasks that were completed months ago, and have been confirmed as such at least weekly. You will still be asked again. We were often left to communicate with clients on our own, despite being told the new management was specifically going to stop that. The clients ended up contacting the developers directly again anyway because of communication issues with management so we continued on like that. Despite what the benefits "confirmed by employer" page says, I was NOT offered health insurance or any kind of pension scheme. General lack of maintenence or upkeep around the office - water cooler would go months without having cups available. Complete lack of communication from management is probably one of the biggest problems they have. Trying to book a holiday? Good luck getting a response within a month if you don't keep pestering about it. This was made severely worse when the only HR staff was suddenly let go without warning. Well under average salaries offered, with apparently no system in place for pay rises either.

Staff can be very sympathetic to personal needs of their staff. If you have problems at home, hospital problems or car trouble they let you take as much time off as needed, fully paid without hesitation.

Management are oblivious to the needs of both their employees and clients. They fail at providing official lines of communication between both the client and developers. Client's get stressed out when management don't respond and resort to contacting the developers directly which causes mass confusion. Developers are held accountable for the actions and mistakes of the client. CTOs have been known to suddenly disappear without their teams finding out for weeks afterward, and when they do, the stories of their disappearance vary greatly depending on the manager telling you these lies. How is a team of developers supposed to function without anyone in charge and without any proper lines of communication? Got a problem? Waiting on replies or data from the client? Prepare to receive no help from management at all. They'll promise meetings that never happen and conveniently forget any information you've told them. Has your team member taken a week off? Prepare for management to not know a thing about it, prepare for everything to be on your shoulders as they push you to do an entire teams worth of work with the same deadlines you had before. When it can't be done, expect no sympathy and be prepared for a lot of venomous remarks. Thinking of handing your notice in? Prepare for more fun and games. They'll act like they're happy for you, the moment a deadline hits the rest of the team they'll start trying to think of ways to keep you on board. This doesn't include pay rises or bonuses, no, it includes threats and accusations. Fortunately HR staff and management have no idea about what's actually in our contracts. SGP promise clients they have their employees sign confidentiality agreements, this would be the case if management knew how to go about it. Time and time again I heard them re-assure clients that we'd signed confidentiality agreements. I've never even seen one while working for SGP!